Mass Effect: Resolve
by Zachara
Summary: Lieutenant Serrica Shepard, demoted for her actions on the Torfan raid of 2178, was somehow selected by a turian Spectre to join his organization. Cocky, but fair. Unbreakable, yet not indestructible. A soldier, but always human. Starting from Mass Effect 1 and going until I drop. Rated M for the swearing alone, lots and lots of fictional violence, and sexual encounters.
1. Chapter 1: One for the Show

_Mass Effect is a video game trilogy that is owned by Bioware and EA. The universe is theirs, I just like to play with it._

_This will mostly follow the events of Mass Effect 1 with a little reference here and there to different events in human and alien history._

_The title picture for this story is from wanderer1812 at Deviant Art to whom I give a giant thank you. Go see her stuff on her page! It's AMAZING! You won't regret it!_

_Have fun. I certainly am. :D_

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_Chapter 1: One for the Show_

Jump Zero's bar was always full.

It was simply a given fact since it was the one and only bar the fairly small space station just beyond the orbit of Pluto. Gagarin Station, the station's official title, was an Alliance Systems Government research station and as such, its bar was always packed full with Alliance military personnel.

The old stories say that there are four things that make soldiers run outside a battlefield: One is food and it doesn't matter what kind if you're tired as hell and it's edible. Another is pay, since it would be ridiculous to fight for free anymore. The third is, not surprisingly, a man or woman they find attractive. The last is a chance to get away from it all either by yourself, with friends, or with colleagues. Alcohol usually helps with that last one – detrimental factor or no. That was why some very wise administrator from years back made sure the bar was the biggest room on the station closest to the eating Mess for access to cooks, food and drink. Of course, it had more than this single function. During work-hours, Jump Shots Bar and Grill was a large conference room complete with presentation stage, tables, chairs, computer equipment and was used to entertain visiting dignitaries, scientists or military conventions. Come the evenings, however, the more expensive or sensitive equipment, tables, and chairs were moved out and replaced with less-expensive, breakable counterparts. Come the bigger holidays, like tonight's celebration of Memorial Day, the bar seeped into other rooms close to it. Many liquor licences were authorized for other parts of the station close to Jump Shots for large events such as this one. Then, no equipment or furniture was safe unless it was made of solid metal and was bolted to the floor or if it was locked away in a secure room.

November 3rd was officially commissioned in 2158 CE by the Systems Alliance to commemorate the fallen and honour the living soldiers both in it's own ranks and in all other wars throughout human history. For Alliance personnel, Memorial Day was a morning of reverence, pride, and sadness followed by a day, evening, night and sometimes morning of varying, but mostly embarrassing, levels of debauchery. Leave requests for the 4th of November were very common in the months preceding the date and only a few were authorized to have it. Whether you were one of the 'lucky ones' to have authorization to not work the next day or not, it was hard not to get caught up in the celebrations which ensued.

Jump Shots had hired a large band this year. A real one: not some holographic recording of one. They had been playing on stage since 1400 hrs and good thing too since most of the crowd had been at the bar since the late morning after the ceremonies had ended and were starting to get rowdy. They were an eclectic collection of musicians and it became clear early that the band used a total of twelve members of varying talent on many instruments ranging from the mandolin, violin, and bagpipes, to acoustic guitar, electric guitar, synthesizers, and mixers. While some of the crowd was a little surprised to see and hear so many human instruments live and in the same place, not many complained since the music was quite good even if it was a little old fashioned at times and jumped between opposing types of music without much warning. Most were just happy to see some of their own on stage as the entire band consisted of Alliance soldiers in dress-uniform blues. In addition to singing some Regimental songs, the band also sang songs you could follow even when incredibly intoxicated, which increased the moral of the entire room. Many of the previously staged music had been recorded holograms of famous bands or some terrible live bands from the Mars colonies.

The manager, a civilian worker hired by the Alliance military to tend Jump Shots in the evenings and work a clerical job during the day, was actually delighted when he realized just how cheap it was to hire a band that consisted of military personnel and had booked them as soon as he heard their asking price. He wasn't expecting them to bring a drummer – that hadn't been part of the arrangement and he liked to meet everyone he hired. They'd told him that it was because the Lieutenant had just gotten to the station the other day and said that they didn't need to renegotiate the price even with an extra band member, so the manager allowed the drummer to stay and continue setting up her instruments.

It was only when the band started playing that someone had told him half-way into the first set that the drummer looked strikingly like _the_ Lieutenant Serrica Shepard.

He had blinked at the soldier who'd told him and had done a double take at the woman who had removed her dress-tunic to play the drum set more freely on stage.

"Holy shit," was all he could say. If it wasn't her, it could have been her sister or an illegal clone. She looked just like the newsreels had shown her at the medal ceremonies and rare interviews: short flaming red hair, freckles and all.

The manager frowned in thought. Did Lieutenant Shepard even have a sister? If she did, was she in the military? Could he be making a mistake? And if it was Shepard, what was she doing here? He activated his omni-tool, causing the few near waiting to order a drink to try signalling the waitress working the bar with him.

He quickly searched her name on the extranet and was stunned to see that the photo of her that popped up with her name, rank and recent news-feeds was an exact match to the woman grinning on stage to the old sea chantey the band was performing. He shook his head again at the sight before looking at the rest of her unclassified profile online to make sure.

Under a title called 'Current Family', the article he'd chosen read: _This highly decorated Alliance Marine is one of the only surviving colonists of batarian slaver attack on Mindoir (keywords Mindoir attack 2170 for details). Her only living relative is her biological mother, Captain Hannah Shepard, who currently serves in the Alliance Navy aboard the dreadnaught SSV Kilimanjaro as a senior officer._

The manager nodded at the information – no sister! That really _was_ Shepard up there! – and immediately went to Jump Shots' local database in the extranet. He moved his omni-tool up above the heads of the crowd by standing on his chair behind the bar as the waitress asked desperately for help with filtering the amount of orders coming through. He recorded a quick close-up video of the Lieutenant beating the hell out of the drums now to start a new more modern song and posted the vid within seconds, captioning it with: _Lieutenant Shepard (N7 badass!), Hero of Elysium is playing in the band here! Is anybody else seeing this?!_ He posted the video and caption as an anonymous commenter on the site's community forum and grinned. Tonight was going to be profitable – Memorial Day always was – but if word got out that the Lieutenant Shepard was playing in the band, who knows what kind of endorsement money he could get. The Lieutenant was gold for the media right now! Even if it wasn't for what he had posted just a few moments ago.

He made a mental note to have one of his waiters sit a floating camera in the rafters lighting the stage before going to aid his employee with the orders.

More people began flocking to the bar as the hours went on.

One soldier, incredibly drunk, staggered up to the bar and found a less than pleased VI tech from Alliance Research & Development carefully sipping her beer. He playfully slapped her on the shoulder in greeting. The woman was terse with him and winced whenever he tried to form his words properly, but he didn't seem to care about her recoiling reaction.

"Hey!" he said as if suddenly realizing something. "Hey!" He poked her in the shoulder and she nearly wanted to knock him out. "Did you see the drummer?" He said raising his eyebrows up and down provocatively.

The R&D woman looked onstage and looked back at the man with a shrug. "Cute, I guess." She said, staring intently at her half-empty beer. "Not really into combat vets though and that scar from her bottom jaw down her neck gives her a roguish quality that I'm only too familiar with." When she was rudely reminded of a past relationship that had been ruined by said quality, she downed her beer suddenly and bitterly. "Besides, aren't you supposed to be trying to hook me up with that reporter chick that's been stationed here to do a documentary on the Biotic Acclimation and Temperance training that went down in flames a few years ago? What's her name? Loraina?"

The soldier looked at her in shock. "That," he began, trying to point a swaying finger and arm towards stage and nearly hitting people in the thickening crowd. "_That_ is Lieutenant Shepard, Aamina! Come'on! You gotta at least try!"

Aamina froze. It was not a nervous freeze, nor a kind one. She was quiet for a few moments, her gaze turning hard and murderous as it focussed on the pale-skin redhead playing the drums.

"Um, Aamina?" said the man, not understanding why she wasn't speaking.

Aamina's gaze snapped back to him and her lip curled into a snarl, but instead of yelling at him she slammed her empty beer down on the bar. "Yeah, Mike," she finally replied to the soldier's challenge. "It would sure be a good idea to date the fucking Butcher of Torfan." Sarcasm bled from her words and Aamina quickly scowled, then turned away to the bar to order another drink: something a lot stronger than beer.

"The who of the what, now?" blinked Mike.

"The Butcher of Torfan," repeated a man with a deep voice sitting right beside Aamina before she could yell at Mike. His skin was pale, unlike both Aamina and Mike, but he had a strong, bearded, chiselled jaw, messy brown hair and a build like someone who could break you in half. He ignored Mike's head-jerk back as the drunken soldier tried to think of where he had heard that title. Instead, he turned to Aamina and carefully stated: "You knew someone under her command." Regret and pity lined his voice as he said it.

Aamina hesitated for a moment, unable to detect what kind of accent he had, and then nodded slightly as she finally got the attention of one the bartenders and ordered a triple scotch without rocks. "My brother, sir," she said after a few moments.

The officer to her left nodded. "My condolences," was all he could really say. When she indicated that she clearly was in no mood to talk about it, he went back to his drink.

"Wait, wasn't Torfan the name of the moon where Shepard kicked batarian ass _again_?" droned Mike, unaware of what was going in front of him. "I mean, after she gave them a preliminary ass kicking in the Skyllian Blitz," he clarified, hoping he remembered the timeline correctly. "And, I mean, isn't Torfan the reason that the batarians aren't messing with us humans in the Skyllian Verge right now?" He closed his eyes tight, trying to think of the timeline again.

Aamina's glass had arrived by the time Mike had finished his garble and she took it in an iron grip that nearly shattered it, staring angrily at the wall behind the bar. The strong-jawed officer beside her was wincing, though Mike couldn't see him, then he looked over to see what kind of damage Mike had done to the woman beside him and saw the glass strain Aamina's grip. His eyes went wide – she was probably imagining that the glass as Shepard's neck, he thought, or even Mike's. He swung around on the bar stool and got the other man's attention with an exuberant wave.

"Could be," he said to answer Mike's question abstractly. "But the batarians won't be the problem pretty soon. There are rumours of sightings of Geth ships coming out of the Perseus Veil, so –"

"Naw, naw, naw!" said Mike gesturing for the officer to stop. He opened his eyes and gave the officer bars on the man's inform, several medals on his left side and then his nametag on the right a sparing glance by squinting at them. "2nd Lieutenant, Shawcross, sir." He nodded at the man. "I want to hear Mina's take on this! She always leaves when the guys and I talk about Shepard and I want a straight answer from her!"

Shawcross openly winced at the man now, expecting the R&D to punch Mike at any moment, but when she didn't, he looked at her in surprise. She got up from her own stool at the bar and walked straight into Mike's face in a method that reminded Shawcross of a training sergeant. She left the man no space to move.

"Listen, _yah manyak,_" she seethed at him, still griping the glass in hand and pointing at his face with the other. "Shepard was the hero of Elysium – fine, I get that. My brother was there. She saved his life and a quite a few others in that battle." Before Mike could open his mouth and claim victory, she continued. "And then, fucking Torfan happens. She got most of them killed – my brother, Fadi, was one of them – you remember him, the one who kept sending me those vids of the shittiest training on Titan like it was the best thing that had ever happened to him?" There were tears in her eyes, but she wouldn't let them fall. "When Shepard was assigned to the 103rd Marine Division's and then given his platoon to command to assault Torfan's maze of underground slaving tunnels, he was ecstatic that he got to serve with her again. He told me so the week before he died." She took a breath to steady herself. "I don't know the full story – I'm not authorized for the full story, apparently! – but I know that only _five_ soldiers came out that platoon alive and she was one of them – she was in charge," she laughed bitterly. "I know it was a victory and it scared the shit out of the batarians, but we didn't have to kill all of them for it to have been a victory, and if Shepard had had some kind of self-control…" She said the last at almost a whisper, then took the glass of scotch and suddenly downed it.

"Jesus, Mina. Get over yourself. Shepard's fucking good at her job," said Mike. He hadn't heard even half of what she had said, but all he knew was that she was badmouthing the most badass woman in the entire galaxy. Not that he'd be brave enough to say that to Shepard's face _ever_, but Mina's tone sat wrong with him. "Just because she's willing to see her mission through with casualties, doesn't mean she's fucking Satan." He took a swig of his drink as if that was the end of the conversation and Aamina could say no more in her defence.

The officer still on his stool face-palmed himself at Mike's insensitive comments. The band was in the middle of a song dictating an old sailor's tale of the main trunk of ship's mast taking out both his legs in a battle long past as Aamina sneered at the soldier before her. Her dark eyes held him for a moment, letting her rage sink in, build up and sink in again to the point where she slapped Mike hard enough make him lose his already precarious balance, drop his half-finished drink, and knock him off his chair.

"_Kes emak yah kalb!_" She swore, centring a small crowd's attention on her and Mike for a few moments. The group of soldiers and two civilian employees about them had laughed or looked concerned as the watched Mike tumble. A few made some jeering noises as Aamina marched towards the closest door leaving the soldier she'd just hit trying to recover from what had just happened. People parted from her path like frightened fish as she let the glass she'd just emptied fall unceremoniously onto a table on her way out and stormed off into the hallway.

When Mike finally got to his feet, with the aid of the officer that had now left his stool, he frowned at the bigger man. "I was going to set her up with Shepard, man! You scared her off!" He chided dramatically, looking about for his spilt drink.

"I think you did that all on your own," murmured the officer as the crowd lost interest. "Do you have any friends here?" He inquired, hoping not have to intervene with the soldier's behaviour – it was still far too early in the night for him to start calling the military police.

"He does." Said a marine coming up to them both and pulling Mike upright. "Sorry, sir." He said, cringing at the other man. To Mike, he punched him hard in the arm.

"Ow!" complained the heavily intoxicated soldier. "Jeeze!" He cringed as he rubbed the spot. "What was that for?!" He demanded slurring.

"For being a dick to Aamina, you know she's pissed when she starts swearing that badly – or did you forget to get your implants looked at when Jesse hit you in ring last week and not know that she was calling you horrible things in Lebanese?" The friend shook his head when Mike looked sheepish, then cuffed him on the side of the head. "Thought so! Still, even without the translator though – why the fuck didn't you just stop talking, man? She may be a short woman, but even I'm scared of her when she's angry and I'm twice as heavy and carry three times the muscle."

Mike burped a little and shrugged. "Didn't think she was that pissed," he said simply. His gaze wandered from his friend back to the stage again. "And Shepard's a goddess – I'll defend her when she needs defending!" He put his fist in the air triumphantly, but nobody was listening.

"Yeah," sighed the officer. "Trust me on this, Serrica really doesn't need defending, especially with this. In fact, she'd probably approve of Aamina hitting you just now."

The soldier looked at the officer and swayed into a fighting stance. "Let's discuss that point!" he challenged, but his friend grabbed Mike and promptly turned him about under protest.

His friend managed to pull him away from the officer completely and sat him down at the table with the rest of his buddies.

"You know you just tried to pick a fight with 2 Lt Jordan Shawcross, right?" said the only woman at his table of friends.

Mike blinked at her. "Who?"

She rolled her eyes at him, putting her drink down and pointing on stage. "He was at Torfan with Shepard. Even though it was a victory, they both got charged and demoted for it. Don't you watch the news, man? They both used to be lieutenant commanders."

Mike nearly doubled over in an attempt to get up, but the soldier who had fetched him grabbed him by the collar and shoved him back down again. "I doubt it's a good idea to talk to him again," he said plainly and didn't let go of his friend's collar.

"But if he knows Shepard, maybe we could talk. I could ask her about all the training she's gotten –"

"He basically just told you that Shepard would just end up hitting you – just like every other woman eventually does." His friend gave Mike a jerk downward that forced him back into his seat. "Plus I like most of the songs they're playing, how about we don't antagonize the drummer?" He took an empty beer glass and set it down in front of Mike and pulled the newly filled pitcher towards him. "Let it be, Mike. There's more beer to drown your sorrows anyways, so make the best of it."

The fourth soldier at the table smiled at Mike as the forlorn soldier pouted muttering: "Not _every_ woman. And besides, I wouldn't be hitting on her or anything..." He stared at Shepard in reverence and pouted. "She's beyond my reach."

Mike tried reach for a new glass dejectedly as the fourth soldier, a lanky man with a well-trimmed beard, nodded at Mike's saviour. "Well, now that that's over with and Mike hasn't gotten himself killed." He poured himself a beer after Mike was finished. "Can we keep talking about the turian in the corner that's creeping the hell out of us all?"

The female soldier sighed. "He's obviously here on official business, Merick." She said, annoyed. "Look at the guard that keeps walking around him – if that guy isn't N7..." She let her sentence trail off and jutted a thumb in the direction of the turian's bodyguard without looking.

Merick shook his head. "You would think that, wouldn't you? But he's a bodyguard hired out of a private company that deals with international delegates. Nobody I've asked knows what he's doing here to need special protection like that." He turned to Mike's saviour again, motioning towards the bigger man meaningfully. "Dan, you work with the private security personnel more than the rest of us. You heard anything?"

Daniel looked at the turian who was watching the band. The alien's eyes were such a bright green; they practically glowed with an eerie light in the bar's dim setting. He was in a turian military dress uniform that was black, but he wore no nametag, nor did he have any medals to show. He held the turian equivalent rank of commander on the cuffs of his sleeves and collar and there was a modified pistol attached to his side. His white face-paint was prominent over the dark brown, scale-like metallic carapace and avian features, but there was practically no expression on his face at the moment. Not that Daniel knew much about what an emotive turian was supposed to look like. He'd never seen much range of motion in their faces other than the mandibles twitching about and a few eyebrow scales moving to and fro. He looked more like a carving of a turian than a living one; Dan hadn't even seen him move, though he was sure the turian was blinking from time to time. His guard looked on as his charge watched the show and kept at any passer-by who was looking for trouble at bay – being the only turian on the station with a bunch of drunken Alliance soldiers was usually a bad thing. But Dan knew that the guard was there to protect the humans from themselves since anyone provoking the turian would be in for one hell of a shock and the guard's actions such a threat would be the least of their worries.

He turned to his friends who were waiting for him to reply to Merick's query – all save Mike, who was loudly and badly singing along to the new song the band. Daniel made his voice low and took an unsteady breath. "This doesn't leave the table," he stated clearly to the two that were listening. "If it does, I'll be transferred, maybe even court-martialled."

"We get it, already, Dan," said the woman impatiently. "We aren't going to say anything. Now, come'on! What's that turian doing here?"

Dan took another steadying breath. "That's the thing nobody knows what he's here for exactly. But I was there when he got here so I saw his ID when they scanned it. Get this: the info on him said 'Classified' _everywhere_ and was immediately sent to the Serpent Nebula and the highest level security from the Citadel for verification. That could only mean one thing: He's a member of the council's Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch."

Merick cringed. "Holy shit, a spectre? Now I regret even being interested."

But the woman laughed at the news. "Mare, show a little backbone, will you?" she punched him playfully in the arm. "He's not going to kill us for knowing."

Merick snorted. "I know that – spectres don't general start shooting just because you know who they are, unless you're on a cesspit like Omega or something. I'm not worried about dying from this. I'm worried about political fallout if people find out I know and I get caught in a scandal." He glared at her. "It's easy for you to ignore, Priea," he said, using her last name. "You have a job to transfer to on Mars if you bail out of the Alliance."

Priea grinned. "Comes with taking the Alliance's money for university. _I_ had my priorities straight when I signed on." She turned back to Daniel, ignoring Merick's scowl at her comments. "Any theories on why he's here?" she asked eagerly.

Dan shook his head. "Some big Alliance names are here for the celebrations that aren't usually here, but that's all I can think of."

"Big names? Like who?"

He nodded towards the stage. "Shepard for one. Captain Anderson for another. Though I think Shepard wasn't in on any plans – they've been moving her around for months to finally get her away from the media and, the way I hear, she's been glad to avoid the psychologists lined up to evaluate her for everyone." He shook his head, thinking of the toll that kind of limelight must have had on the woman on stage. "Five years after Torfan and they're still hounding her for any scrap of information. That's why I think this is just another one of her avoidance postings – it has to be. But Anderson…" He pointed to their table and clucked once. "Anderson came here for a really big reason other than the ceremonies today. So did Admiral Hackett."

"Shit, Hackett's here too?" said Merick, unbelieving.

Priea frowned at his reaction and rolled her eyes at them both. "What's so weird about that? Last year, the commander of the Sixth Fleet showed up for the ceremonies here. Come'on guys, Hackett just drew the short straw this year."

Dan looked dubious. "Maybe, but think about it: Both Captain Anderson, who's got enough medals that if they melted them all down they could make a life-sized statue of him, _and_ Admiral Hackett showing up at the same time as Lieutenant Shepard gets posted here? That's a lot of big names here all of sudden. And now a spectre's here too. Tell me that's not fishy in the slightest," he dared talking a large sip of beer.

Priea made a face. "I guess it's weird, but there's a lot of conjecture going on there. This could all be just coincidence." Something caught her eye behind Merick's head and she nodded towards it meaningfully. "We aren't going to find out for sure anyways. It seems our turian friend is leaving." She elbowed Merick to look where she was looking. "Want to follow him?"

Merick ducked his head, adamantly regarded his drink while nervously avoiding eye contact with anything beside the glass. Mike was almost completely passed-out in his chair, despite the fact that Shepard was beating the hell out of the drums in the rendition of some type of Death Metal song. Priea rolled her eyes and shook her head at Merick as if he were less of a man and lifted her glass to cheer Shepard on.

Daniel, however, watched the spectre leave the room without fear of reprisal. The turian's bodyguard moved a drunken man out of the way carefully as Nihlus moved towards the exit that Aamina had used and turned left out of sight.

No one would see the spectre for the rest of the night and he would be gone by morning.

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_Andraste's flaming undergarments, I'm tiered... but I must still write._

_I actually wrote the first part of Jump Shot's quite a few years ago. I wasn't expecting it to be so damn long, but there it is! And it work! Sorta..._


	2. Chapter 2: Making the Call

_Anderson, Nihlus, Udina and Hackett in a room together... Nothing bad could possibly happen._

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_Chapter 2: Making the Call_

Captain David Anderson was uneasy as he stood in a small meeting room in his dress uniform with full medals weighing down one side of his chest. A tech corporal was the only one in the comms room with him at the moment, ready to transmit on a secure feed to Citadel space while sitting quietly behind the captain to monitor the transmission signals. Anderson ran his hand down his round, age-creased face and rubbed his tiered eyes with the third sigh he'd made since he'd gotten in this room an hour ago.

It took a lot to get him uneasy. Twenty-six years of service in the military and seeing more than a few disturbing things in those years had made it hard for him to feel as uncomfortable as he was now. It felt like he was wearing the wrong size uniform and no one else could notice how tight the damn thing was.

His hand reached for the heated wine, amaretto, spiced rum mix in a mug near the table that had been prepared at his request for this meeting and couldn't help but think that it about how old that dark-skinned hand seemed to look. He huffed at that, ignoring the arrant thought and instead took to remembering one year out of those twenty-six years of service: the year he had been in Shepard's shoes.

He sighed indignantly at that thought too, taking a steady drink of the heated beverage in his hand. He had to admit that that had been one hell of a year – he'd bought an expensive bottle from the Rhone Valley in France to commemorate it and had promised himself never to open it until something could unseat that time period in terms of risks to his own neck, explosions, sorrow and hopeful events.

He watched the video on screen that showed Lieutenant Shepard and the band she played with on Jump Shot's stage for a few moments, carefully taking in Shepard's expression and hoped that she'd day help him open that particular bottle.

Watching her now, she had closed her eyes during in the current song and had yet to miss the drum-set in over two minutes. It was a simple jazz-like beat to a song that spoke more of love than of love lost and thus was supposed to have a deep and heavy kick-drum combined with a safe high-hat oriented rhythm to it. Shepard, however, chose to add more snare and cymbal drum beats in parts of the song that were supposed to focus solely on the bass-player or the guitarist. She was in her own world in the song, doing her rendition of the song regardless of the plan. Some parts of the song were inspired, but other parts got her annoyed looks from the man who was on the guitar. Not that it mattered since the audience loved anything Shepard did on stage.

"I have not had the privilege of hearing human music live on a stag before now, Captain," said a flanging voice from the door to the room. It sounded as if two identical voices speaking over each other with the same words, though one was slightly later than the other. "I have to say, it has been a very enlightening experience for me."

The captain quickly turned sideways to see the council spectre be guided into the room. The bodyguard he was with nodded to Anderson and promptly left the two alone with the tech.

"Commander Kriyk," said Anderson diplomatically. He put down his drink and walked over to welcome the spectre. "Please have a seat. I'm sure Admiral Hackett will be with us shortly."

The turian's mandibles waivered for a moment and he waved the captain off, electing to walk up to the video screen instead than sit down in the chair Anderson offered. "I would prefer Nihlus, or Spectre Kriyk if you must, Captain Anderson." He stated clearly, and then made what Anderson supposed was a sideways grin with one mandible high on one side of his face. "The turian military and I didn't usually see eye to eye when I was part of it and it never truly listened to me before I became a spectre." His green eyes shifted towards the turian brandy sitting on the table beside the video screen and then back to Shepard again. "I'm only wearing this uniform because I needed to pass as a turian military official to have any respectability on the station at this time."

Anderson raised an eyebrow at the request, but nodded. "Fair enough." He picked up his mug of warm wine again. "If you don't mind me asking, Kriyk," he began, making a show of turning on a datapad on the desk in front of him and sitting down in the seat he'd just offered to the spectre. "What do you think of the show so far?"

He looked up to see that Nihlus had not turned from the live-feed, though he noticed the turian's mandibles waving out slightly. "You're expecting me to say something degrading about human culture, I expect," the turian said lightly. He turned his head a little so that an eye could see Anderson's surprised reaction. "This is not surprising since you know my mentor's opinion on your species, Captain, but Saren's opinion is not my own: he is wrong in this." He turned the other direction and made his way to the turian brandy marked in the corner of the room. "Humanity is new to the galactic community, but it's no more a plague on it than the turians, asari, salarians, volus, or hanar. We all have weaknesses, but I see the potential in your species more than my colleagues would probably like." He paused, thinking for a moment, then huffed out a small laugh. "More than most of my species would probably like." He poured himself a glass and picked it up with two long fingers and thumb tipped with talons wrapping around it securely. "I don't care that Lieutenant Shepard's human, Anderson. I care about what she's done and it's enough to get me interested in sponsoring her. This meeting is only to clarify my intentions to your military and government – I intend to offer her a spectre recruit position regardless of what happens here."

The captain regarded the turian with a frown for a moment, and then straightened. "Understood, Kriyk," he said simply. "I know you aren't your mentor and your reputation speaks for itself." He paused for a moment, trying to find the proper wording. "I am, however, relieved to know your head's pretty much exactly in the right place for this and I thank you for it."

"Nice to see you two getting along so well," said a low, raspy voice at the door. "What did I miss?"

The door slid shut behind Admiral Hackett in full dress-blues and was secured from the other side by the guards who had granted him access. Anderson got to his feet to salute him. "Good to see you, Steve," said Anderson honestly, taking Hackett's outstretched pale, weathered hand in his for a firm shake – the admiral hadn't even bothered to salute him. "Excellent speech today," kidded Anderson. He motioned towards the table and chairs in the centre of the room with an open arm. "Nice and short."

Hackett smiled through the scars on one side of his face, blue eyes twinkling. "I was young once, old man," he removed his navy headdress to drag his hand through the short, thick grey hair there. "I made sure there was ample time for drinking afterwards."

"I'm sure the boys and girls in blue appreciate it." Anderson laughed and motioned an open arm towards the Spectre. "This is –"

"Nihlus Kriyk, Admiral," interrupted the turian coming forward to extend his talons. "Special Tactics and Reconnaissance, direct from the Citadel Council. Ignore the turian military rank, if you would be so kind."

Hackett took the talons hesitantly, wondering why the Spectre didn't want to be addressed in rank, but shook the turian's hand once. "Good to finally meet you, Kriyk."

Nihlus nodded, keeping his head bowed as Hackett let go of him. "You have an excellent service record, Admiral. I'm glad the Alliance has decided to bring you in on this discussion. But I'm anxious to begin, so shall we contact your ambassador and start this meeting?"

"Straight to the point, then." Hackett scratched his beard for a moment and then motioned for them both to sit down. "Alright, let's get this started." He informed the tech to send a message to the human ambassador on the Citadel as Nihlus and Anderson took their seats with drinks in hand.

"Yes, sir," replied the tech dutifully. "Patching you through." The video-link to Jump Shot's interior was minimized and the sound muted. It was off to the right side of the main transmission now. "Secure link established, sir." The main screen turned white, then the words 'ready' stretched across in large black letters. "The ambassador's been waiting for a few minutes already," said the tech. "We're good on both ends." He began controlling the cameras in their rooms, focusing on the whole room first for focus, then on individual camera in front of each member at the table. "Video is good. Sound levels good. Link will be up here in three, two, one, and mark."

The image of an older, caramel skinned man with a long face abruptly came on the large video screen in front of the oval shaped meeting table and on a private screen in front of each member. He looked as if he were the kind of man that always seemed upset. His deep-socketed brown eyes seemed worn, his fine short hair was greyer than Hackett's, and his lips seemed to be in a permanent frown. He looked down his pointed nose at the data pads in front of him before clearing his throat to begin.

"This meeting has now come to order," he read in pointed, matter-of-fact voice. "I am Human Ambassador to the Citadel Donnel Udina presiding over the final decisions regarding this proposal before presenting it to the Alliance Government Officials. Admiral Steven Hackett and Captain David Anderson, both highly decorated Alliance soldiers will be acting as advisors in this matter due to their command and combat experience – referencing readily available. Commander Nihlus Kriyk, a member of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel Council, has motioned to take on a the mentoring role of Lieutenant Serrica Shepard, N7 special forces graduate and highly decorated officer of the Alliance Marines – references also readily available – in hopes of inducting her into the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch as a candidate. The meeting is to finalize this motion from Spectre Kriyk, hear any and all reasons behind his selection and to address any and all questions or complaints regarding the candidate's qualifications for such a motion." He put down the data-pad. "Are the parameters of this meeting clear, gentlemen?"

"Clear, Ambassador," said Admiral Hackett.

"Yes, Ambassador," said Anderson.

"Understood," agreed Nihlus.

Udina bristled at not being called by his title by the turian, but quelled his will to correct the spectre and instead abruptly said: "Well, gentlemen. Tell me why a woman commonly being referred to as the 'Butcher of Torfan' would be the best candidate to represent humanity in the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel Council?"

"With all due respect, that's not the only battle on record for her, ambassador," the captain pointed out diplomatically. "The media blew Torfan out of proportion and Shepard had proven herself long before that mission, including during the Skyllian Blitz, if you'll recall."

"No," stated Hackett sharply and much to Anderson's surprise. "The media haven't really been exaggerating for once. She really did get most of her platoon killed in the slaving tunnels on Torfan. Several of the communiqués between team members under her command were leaked to the public. They only show a little of what had happened, but the rest of the evidence was pretty clear even without interviews. There's a reason she and the other officers in charge were demoted for Torfan, Anderson." He placed his hand on the documents in front of him on data-pad. "I have no doubt of Shepard's ability to fight – all records show her to be a deadly shot, a skilled tactical combatant who knows how to deconstruct a battlefield situation, and, while she might not be a strong biotic, she can certainly put that power to good use in the field. I do, however, take issue with her command ability now that we know the full story of what happened on Torfan."

"Your reports show that you only have the full story because the lieutenant gave a full statement – the communiqués were not as reliable as everyone thought, Admiral," said Nihlus before Anderson could counter. "She took full responsibility for her actions and _demanded_ a demotion from lieutenant commander to 1st lieutenant. She wouldn't have remained in the Alliance had it not complied." He looked at the ambassador. "Those last two actions, her impressive and brutal efficiency on Torfan not withstanding, would intrigue me to sponsor her even if I hadn't known about what she did on Elysium and Akuze."

Both Hackett and Anderson looked at the turian in great surprise. "I was not aware that the Council knew of the events that transpired on Akuze. Nor had they such an intense interest in such things," stated Hackett forcefully.

Nihlus laughed at that. "They aren't interested and they don't know what happened, as far as I know," he said to the Admiral. "I found out the information on my own – we spectres have many resources at our disposal to get what we want and I had quite an interesting, almost impossible time getting the full story of Akuze from various private and Alliance sources. I wouldn't fret too badly over your internal security, Admiral. It took me a few months of reeling in favours and doing my own research to get what I needed on Shepard's actions."

"What was so special about her actions on Akuze, if I may ask?" Udina steepled his hands while he asked the question. "Other than the fact that she survived the attack of several thresher maws, of course. I do have the report on the disaster that happen there, but it seems to say that there were no survivors as most know from the statement the military made. I imagine that she was undercover for some reason or an other?"

The turian looked towards Admiral Hackett. "I found that to be a little odd, actually," confessed the turian as he steepled his talons and regarded the admiral expectantly. "Soldiers qualified in the N program are usually more efficient in a squad environment instead of individually. They also typically don't serve for undercover missions such as the one in which Shepard was apart."

The old soldier took over nodded. "You aren't mistaken. It's usually in the domain of Alliance Internal Affairs or it's Bureau of Investigation to take on a mission like the one that lead to the events that transpired on Akuze, but you have to remember that this was only a few months after Elysium. Shepard was a bonafide heroine. She was a rising star in the Alliance and everyone knew her name. She could have asked for a position guarding garbage compactors and I wouldn't have been able to say 'no'."

Nihlus' mandibles flared outward and the scales above his eyes rose noticeably. "She asked for the mission?"

Hackett nodded fervently. "Specifically, she asked her Fleet head for a position that involved work that would remove her from the spot-light, but still make her useful. The…" he struggled to find the appropriate words. "Unique situation in the 6th Fleet had been brought to my attention by the time she was asking around and when I was brought into the discussion, Shepard jumped at the chance to do some dirty work with infiltration and espionage."

He turned to the screen at his spot on the table and the ambassador listening to him intently from the other side of the galaxy. "Shepard was sent to the 10th Frontier Division, 31st brigade, 2nd Infantry Regiment attached to the 6th Fleet unit under a different name and rank while her prep for the mission included her hair being dyed, her iris' colour changed as well as accent training. I'm told she actually enjoyed the training and a good thing too since the early reports she gave said that she was doing quite well – the unit didn't even know she had had N program training. She was with them for one purpose: to gather evidence while causing as little disruption as possible. There had been suspicions that the commanding officer had been abusing his command of the marine unit and several Alliance vessels, but the Admiral in charge of the 6th Fleet was always unable to get anything solid on him. Shepard was ordered to find ties to private companies and the best way to do that was to poke around at a junior NCM for a time.

"The order to investigate Akuze was part of the evidence Shepard had built up – the Alliance had received no communication with ExoGeni Corp. to investigate the missing pioneering team, though we claimed as such afterwards to save face. Even the rights to colonize Akuze were in doubt as Shepard found out, so ExoGeni shouldn't have been sending the pioneering team to the planet in the first place. Shepard had collected enough evidence to have the commanding officer, several other officers, and some leadership staff court-martialled on misuse of military property, command abuses and several other charges to boot them all out of the Alliance. She had the sum of her findings sent in separate packets as they orbited Akuze, was expecting to be extracted in a few of days, and assist with arresting the culprits."

He stood straighter than normal in his chair for the next part the report. "Once the marine unit she was a part of was on the ground, however, they found only the pioneering settlement and nothing else. Their CO was ordered to set camp and begin a search of the nearby mountain ranges for any sign of ExoGeni's employees."

"And then they were set upon by the thresher maws," said Nihlus matter-of-factly.

Hackett nodded solemnly. "According to Shepard's personal report – which you would definitely _not_ have ambassador, but I can acquire it for you if you wish – the temporary comms tower that the unit had set up was destroyed only seconds after the first attack. Half of the unit was either buried under-ground by the monsters before she was even out of her temporary bunk. She rallied as many soldiers as she could and got them running for high ground closer to the mountain ranges – only a few made in that far. I'm told that at the emergency rendezvous point, she carried a wounded soldier into the shuttle only to have him die of shock from the acidic injuries he had sustained – she left that out of her report, but the shuttle crew thought it needed to be said in theirs."

"So," Udina said, "she was the only survivor of a unit of at least fifty marines."

Hackett nodded again. "She helped the Alliance Military Police arrest the officers and returned to Arcturus Station for debrief and to have surgery to replace her eye colour." Hackett drummed his fingers against the table when he was finished, his gaze low. "In my opinion, she shouldn't even have been on Torfan. One year was not enough to grieve for an entire unit's death, even if she was embedded with them for a short time."

Nihlus watched as him passively and put together a piece of the puzzle. "You're the one who's been letting her transfer whenever she makes a request," he said perceptively.

Hackett glared at the turian. "Damn right, I am. She was put on the Torfan mission against my recommendations, but many of my colleagues thought that putting her at least partially in charge of the retaliation efforts for the Skyllian Blitz was too good a chance to pass up given since she had done so well against the batarians on Elysium," he said darkly. "She was fit for individual missions after Akuze, but was _not_ ready for a new command." He sighed, messaging the bridge of his nose as if in pain. "But we gave it to her anyway and she accepted the tasking without protest, or even emotion. _That _should have been a warning sign right there. The next warning came when Major Kyle reported that she was becoming less and less friendly with her troops in the prep month before the raid – more than should be required during training and more than she had ever shown in her career to that point; even during the battle from Elysium. And yet, despite both these signs, when the reports from Torfan came back, I seemed to be only one on the Admiralty board who wasn't surprised to hear what Shepard had done."

"Even through all that, Admiral, I feel I have to remind you that the Torfan raid was a complete success," Anderson put in. "Shepard had done in days what would have taken us months. Clearing out the mess of tunnels on Torfan was a good tactical decision and –"

"The officer formerly known as Lieutenant Commander Shawcross admits to watching her purposely cut comms with Major Kyle who was ordering her to retreat and await further orders and co-ord with other platoons," Hackett cut in. "He was her 2IC and he didn't stop her. Then she lead an assault into the tunnels that lasted two hours ending with one third of her platoon dead and half the remaining personnel either injured or exhausted. Then both she and Shawcross admitted they continued against orders – after Shawcross turned off his radio – into the tunnels without resupplying. Shawcross specifically remembers Shepard beating a baratian's head in with the butt end of her rifle, dropping her then broken weapon, and ordering another push with nothing but her limited biotics to help with the fight."

Anderson only looked a little uncomfortable, but Udina looked moderately shocked. Nihlus simply looked impassive to the information.

"She got the job done. There was no living batarian in those tunnels when she was finished," Anderson reiterated. "She _always_ gets the job done."

Hackett leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "But at what cost?" He questioned, scratching his scar without noticing. "And for how long? First, her family on Mindoir, then the unit on Akuze, and then Torfan on top of those horrors. A soldier can only take so much loss on a personal level.'"

"I believe that Shepard is proving to be an exception to your rule," Nihlus pointed at the screen on the left of Udina's image. "Even on stage, she can compel the room to listen and create the rhythm required no matter the situation."

Nihlus turned back to speak with the ambassador without giving a chance for Hackett to rebuttal. "In truth, her actions on Elysium would not have been enough to select for candidacy since I've been thinking of mentoring someone for many years now. Torfan made her an obvious choice because the brutality of that raid had shown us all her ruthlessness – the galaxy will think on that whenever they see her for the rest of her life and I do not believe it is completely a bad thing. I found out about Akuze after Torfan. Her individual actions and her need for survival throughout that mission gone awry has cemented my approval of her abilities and heart." His gaze was hard and long. "I want Serrica Shepard to be a spectre," he stated clearly. "She is the only choice within the whole of the galaxy for my sponsorship at the moment and I do not want someone like her to pass the spectres by. Under my tutelage, she might be the best operative the Citadel has ever seen. She is the best choice," he reiterated loudly.

"She's a grenade waiting to go off," said Hackett shaking his head at the turian's speech. "Her combat skills are not in question here, but as much as I like the girl, Shepard's mental health is not the best frame of mind for this type of responsibility – I don't care what anyone else sees. _I_ see it and she sees it too when no one's looking."

"It's been five years since Torfan," Anderson pointed out. "Despite what the media might say, she has spoken to psychologists about her career. You've read their summaries as many times as I have, Admiral. They all say that she's fit for duty and though I suspect her guilt at what had happened on Akuze and Torfan will always weigh her down for the rest of her life, it will never break her. If there is one thing she has proved so far, it is that she is unbreakable."

Hackett frowned at the captain's assessment, but couldn't find a proper rebuttal to stop this madness. He was going to be outvoted on Shepard's next command. Again. And there wasn't anything he could do about it. _Again_. He steeled himself on the realization and closed his eyes to the pain of it.

"It that the kind person we _want_ protecting the galaxy?" Udina asked after a short silence, his gaze hard on Captain Anderson.

Anderson could feel Nihlus' eyes boring into him now. He didn't flinch under the scrutiny and nodded towards the image of the ambassador. "That's the only person who _can_ protect the galaxy. I fully support Nihlus Kriyk's choice: Shepard _should_ be humanity's first spectre."

After a moment of silence that seemed to last longer than it should have been, Udina sighed and made a note in his files. "I'll make the call. The subject of this meeting in now concluded." He said pointedly and then called through the screen to Hackett. "Admiral, you shall receive orders on this matter as soon as I can give them to you. It should not take long. In the meantime, promote the lieutenant to at least lieutenant commander so she can fill the position of XO on the SSV Normandy without having to go through regimental channels. Captain Anderson will be her new CO and you will make her transfer to the ship as smooth as possible. Captain Anderson, you too will receive orders through Admiral Hackett."

Without waiting for a reply, the ambassador nodded towards Nihlus. "As was discussed upon your proposal, do you still intend to stay on board the _Normandy_ at your convenience, Spectre Kriyk?"

Nihlus nodded. "I do. I wish to observe the commander more closely on a military ship during manoeuvres before we begin any mission together."

"Very good," said Udina. "I thank you for your time on this matter, gentlemen. Good evening."

The transmission cut out on the ambassador's side and the tech returned the video of the stage at Jump Shot's to the centre as he powered down the transmissions on his end. Shepard was still playing the drums relentlessly in a fast, upbeat song about a lover at a rock show, but this time she was grinning and her eyes were open only when the tempo picked up for the chorus.

The drums kept on and were all the captain could hear as all save he left the room. Hackett had given him a look that had been colder than his wine was now, but he drank both until they did not faze him.

He hoped Nihlus was right. He hoped he himself was right. He believed that Shepard was the best candidate the Alliance had – better than Anderson had been when he was a candidate for the spectres. He pushed away the voice in the back of his mind that was telling him that he was only doing this to make sure someone else would triumph where he had been betrayed into failing and instead focused on what he had said to the ambassador in all truthfulness: Shepard was unbreakable.

Or so he hoped.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

_I really felt like that entire speech you get at the beginning of Mass Effect to be a little weird since Udina, Anderson or Hackett really had no say on who would become a Spectre. I always liked Nihlus as someone who would specifically ask for Shepard to train with him._

_Yes, I combined the majority of the background stories into one big, ridiculously amazing and traumatizing military career for Shep so far, in case that confused the hell out of you. The Reds won't be in this though - I can only make Shepard's life suck so much before I get too depressed and wonder how she hasn't snapped like a dry and brittle twig._

_So to be clear, this is Serrica's origin story up to when Nihlus takes interest:_

_2154 April 11, born (exposure to element zero with an accident) to Hannah Shepard and husband Marcus White;_

_2159 her parents divorce, dad gets custody, moves to Mindoir;_

_2162 father remarries, baby brother is born;_

_2163 baby sister born;_

_2170 Mindoir attacked (nuff said), horrible mom-daughter reunion;_

_2171 Shepard detected as biotic = L3 implant, also she's not living with her mother and is in university;_

_2172 joins the Alliance, stays in program at uni and has the alliance pay for it;_

_2173; graduated undergrad program, joins graduate program for Masters acquisition, selected for N program after basic training;_

_2175 Graduates top of class in both N3, N5 and N7 program and Masters degree; rank of Staff_

_Lieutenant_

_2176 assigned to Elysium, Skyllian Blitz; promoted to lieutenant commander_

_2177 Elects to work undercover as gunnery sergeant, Akuze happens;_

_2178 Torfan raid; demoted to 1st lieutenant (ow!)_

_2183 selected for Spectre candidate, promoted to lieutenant commander_

_So, there!_

_... It's good thing I haven't dug a giant pit to fall into with this or anything. *nervous __laugh *_


	3. Chapter 3: A Dream Gone By

_OMG! We get to meet Shepard!_

_()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()_

_Chapter 3: A Dream Gone By_

The distinctive sound of the computer tied to a musical playlist powered up beside her ear at 1100 hrs.

" – _dreams that cannot beeeeee!_" Serrica Shepard smiled as a tortured female voice sung in a strangled melancholy voice supported by several stringed instruments. "_And there are storms we cannot weatherrrrr!_" And then the singer was crying with the chorus being played by the strings with her weeping. "_I had a dream my life would be._" She breathed in strangled gasps and steeled her voice for the next part of the song with a hard breathe. "_So different from this **hell** I'm living! So different now from what it seeeeeeeemed!_" A long pause and falling, failing note on the strings. "_Oh…_" A choking, gut-retching summoning of the next words in song. "_Life has killed…the dream –_" A dead silence and gulp to swallow her tears. "_I dreeeeeeeeeeeamed…_" Long, drawn string note followed by harpsichord to end the misery.

"Listen, Rica," said a distinctly Australian voice next to her at the edge of the bed as the harpsichord still played the last of the song. "I know you studied rubbish like that and love it, but I'm telling you, you wouldn't be so damned depressed if you didn't listen to it _all _the time."

Serrica Shepard's hard green eyes snapped open and she let her jaw drop, staring the ceiling above her in horror at the comment. Just the motion of opening her eyes made her feel dizzy immediately, and so she didn't even attempt to her turn her head towards the voice. It was too damned hard to focus too, so she closed her eyes before she managed to croak out, "How dare you! 'Les Miserables' is _not_ rubbish you – !" She struggled to find the appropriate insult. "You priggish son of a man-whore!"

Jordan yawned lazily. "It's too early to hurt my man-feelings, Germ. Can you even see straight right now? And, more importantly, why the fuck did you program the lights in your room to be so bright in the morning?" He groaned at the last question, having opened his eyes after the yawn only to see the dim light in the centre of the ceiling on.

Shepard scowled as she threw her hand and managed to hit the pause button after two tries – it was starting a soundtrack from an old movie where a boy befriends and trains a dragon. "Be thankful that I can't see straight right now; it's the only reason I haven't hit you yet." She groaned and rolled onto her side, closing her eyes again. "The lights aren't even that bright – they're on the second dimmest setting because I don't like waking up in the dark." She paused for a moment, rolling over on her pillow carefully. "And, for the love of all that is holy, don't call me Germ or any variation thereof – it's degrading as all-hells."

She could hear him chuckle on the bed beside her _- holy-shit!-he-was-on-the-bed-**beside**-her!_

Serrica shot into a sitting position, looked over in horror to where Jordan was lying and nearly retched because the movement had been far to sudden and quick for her protesting hangover. Her vision blurred for a moment and she put her hand over her mouth to stifle the hiccup that threatened to turn into something more volatile. When her vision cleared somewhat, Shepard couldn't help but feel utterly relieved at the sight of the half-naked young marine curled up against Shawcross' completely naked form.

She closed her eyes and pitched her nose with the hand that had been over her mouth, trying to focus without a headache interrupting, as Jordan frowned at her. "What was that all about?" He asked, moving his arm a little underneath the pillow that held his companion's head to get more comfortable.

Shepard laughed. "I thought that in my drunken stupor that I had slept with you," she confessed through a smile, though refused to open her eyes. "Thanks for scaring the shit outta me. And why the hell did you bring your guy into _my_ room, jackass?" she said, motioning the marine against Shawcross' chest.

Jordan smiled at her. "If it's any consolation, hell would have to freeze over at least twice before I ever slept with you – drunk or not. And don't act like this is the first time I've woken up in your bed with someone on me."

She laughed quietly at him, and then she noticed just how attractive the man in Jordan's arms really was. "At least he's easy on the eyes this time around," she commented, observing the neatly trimmed goatee, typical Alliance soldier build and unblemished face upper body and face. Jordan's companion was still wearing his Alliance dress pants, though his feet were bare. She chuckled again. "Remember that god-awful, crusty sergeant-clerk you picked up when we were on Arcturus Station for that Sixth Fleet change-of-command party?"

Jordan grumbled. "Don't remind me. I've never gotten dressed that fast with a hangover in my entire life – he just stared at me too as I was doing it too." He shuddered a little at the memory and then pulled the sheet that was halfway down his waist over top of them both, only slightly moving the young man on his chest.

"Yeah, well, this time you have a good one," she replied. Concluding that she wasn't going to get back to sleep, Shepard moved slightly off her bed and leant over on her side with another groan, placing her head in her hands. She realized that she wasn't wearing anything but her Alliance issue undergarments, feeling the air coming out of the vent above her dresser on bare skin. That wasn't too surprising – she preferred sleeping with as little as possible on her, though she did wonder why her damn-cold tags were still dangling around her neck.

She risked opening her eyes after a few steadying moments, and then, quite suddenly and with no small amount of surprise, noticed the young woman passed-out or possibly sleeping on the floor below her.

She blinked in surprise, closed her eyes then opened them again to focus, and make sure she hadn't just been seeing things. "Jordan," she called out nervously, eyes still on the woman. "How much do you remember from last night?"

"This morning," he grunted, smacking his lips. "We left Jump Shots at about 01 and kept drinking well into the morning with a few others." He winced. "I _really_ don't expect you to remember anything passed midnight – I don't think you even want to know what you were drinking, though I was watching you like a hawk the whole time. Unfortunately, I don't remember much passed 0200, when I was challenged to drink an entire bottle of tequila in only a few minutes." He looked at the man beside him. "And I vaguely remember the marine and I hooking up. Why do you ask?"

Shepard felt like giving her friend a double take – how the _fuck_ was he still alive after drinking that much tequila in such a short period? – but was discouraged by her ever persistent headache to not move her field of vision lest she upset the delicate balance of the world around her. Shepard chose to instead inspect the woman on the floor. She was pretty, though a little thin for her tastes, but her guest had long, gorgeous ebony hair that Serrica felt the urge to run her fingers through to see if felt as soft as it looked. She had a cute button nose, a heart-shaped face and smooth, cream-coloured skin. _Definitely a civi_, noted the Lieutenant with a concerned frown, seeing tone, but not the strength beneath the other woman's muscles required to be a soldier. _But where did you come from?_

"You're sure you remember picking up your guy?" she asked with a wince. _Gods, Jordie; please remember her._

She could practically feel Jordan frowning behind her without having to look around. "I think I do, I mean I'm usually looking over your shoulder all the time like you ask every time we go out, but… Rica, I do not like were this is going," he stated simply. "Why are you asking?"

Shepard shrugged. "Because I don't remember picking up the woman passed-out on the floor at my feet." She observed the amount of clothing still on the woman and added. "Though I don't think we got very far if we did manage to hook up."

"Crap..." He moved his arm out from under his companion's head, leaving his marine companion to curl up with the pillow on the bed, and got up to find his military briefs amid the debris of clothes in Shepard's room.

"Christ-on-a-stick – seriously, how in Nekyia's tits can you move that fast?" complained Shepard, rubbing her mouth, face and eyes lethargically. When she heard Jordan get off the bed to search for undergarments, she readied herself to move.

She took a heavy breath, then rocked off the bed and onto her feet. She stayed on that spot for a moment, making sure she could actually walk without careening into the wall and desk currently to her front and moved very slowly and deliberately to where Shawcross was now standing without accidentally stepping on the comatose reporter.

"That was above and beyond the call of duty," she commented making it to her friend at the entrance to her small room in good time. "I should get a medal just for that."

She decided to lean against the wall under the large holographic map of the galaxy she had installed near the door to her room as Jordan moved slowly over to observe the woman on the ground.

"Well, I certainly don't remember her," he said after a few moments and came back to join her at the wall. He leant to her left and let his head fall back against the wall before closing his eyes indignation as Shepard racked her brain for a solution.

"You know," she said finally. "We should just pick a gender and stick to it," grumbled Shepard. "It would make late mornings like these far easier."

Jordan sighed at the comment. "Look," he began, bringing his head down and pointing at the marine with his dress pants on who'd rolled over and was snoring softly. "I think Mr. Goatee has to be mine. Otherwise why would he be curled up on me like that?"

Shepard frowned. "It's possible, I guess, but we've been here before with those two chicks from Elkoss Combine," she pointed out dubiously. "Your girl curled up with me on the couch after you curled up with my girl on my bed, remember?"

"I remember," he said, his voice clearly recalling the loud, incredibly horrible aftermath of the mentioned situation when both women had woken up before he and Shepard. "But I've got this feeling about Goatee…" He scratched his beard lightly in thought.

Serrica snorted. "You don't even remember his name, Jordie," she chided.

"Hey," he said, pointing at her now. "If I'm not allowed to call you German, you aren't allowed to sound like my mother and call me Jordie."

Serrica made a face. "Sorry, but I still have a point with Goatee-man."

Jordan pouted. "Maybe." He paused for a moment, and then snapped his fingers in realization. "Dan." He pointed decisively at the marine on the bed. "His name is Daniel."

"I call bullshit," remarked Shepard, walking over to the marine's sleeping frame and activating her onmi-tool. The tiny implant on the top of her wrist activated and its bright orange computer microframe spread across her forearm and hand. She activated the sensory analysis program and scanned the marine's facial features, then asked for a reference to Alliance personnel.

The search came out positive for one Corporal Daniel Firzen, stationed with Alliance Security on Gagarin's docking ports 10 through 45. "Motherfucker." She let her jaw drop and gave Jordan a sideways glance of bereavement.

Jordan, seeing her face, made a victorious fist-pump, but ruined it by nearly falling over from the motion – he was not as stable as he seemed.

Seeing that, Shepard could only smile at him. "Lucky guess," she quipped and moved slowly around to the other side of the bed. "Now, let's take a look as you, miss Gorgeous-Ebony." She carefully – oh-so-damn-carefully – knelt to take a scan of the sleeping beauty.

A few moments later, Shepard swore loudly and vehemently enough that Jordan gave a careful look as he began locating pieces of his dress-blues on the floor of the room.

Shepard fell back on her haunches onto the rough carpet below with a soft thud and pinched her nose again with a long, drawn out groan.

"What's so horrible?" he said, inspecting his over tunic rather than truly wanting to know the answer to his question.

Shepard motioned down at the sleeping form in a wave as if the ebony haired woman were a curse. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Loraina Delssandro: junior reporter for the Alliance News Network," she said bitterly.

Jordan let out a low whistle. "Oh, the irony. That sucks," he said afterwards. "Well, good luck with that. I'm going to get at least partially dressed. You can put her in my room until she wakes up if you want. Don't hurt her by accident though – it'll make a mess of my sheets and I assume you're trying to avoid political fallout." He began gathering his uniform together and putting on whatever he could acquire from his hunt.

Shepard rolled her eyes at the sound of him moving about, looking at the reporter with abject derision. "Thanks for the help, jackass," she muttered in reply, face-palming herself as she thought about how she was going to get out of this one.

It took her a few seconds to realize that Jordan's suggestion was actually for the best in this situation. In her experience, reporters were such timid creatures when it came to their sexuality – it was usually when she started stating lewd comments about university and academy days that reporters were either taken aback enough for her to redirect the line of questioning or too insulted to continue asking any questions. Jordan usually kept Serrica from taking advantage of anyone while she was piss-drunk – she'd never done it before she had met him, but it was something she always dreaded happening. And if neither one of them remembered the reporter... _Fuck_, Shepard might have to call the Military Police on herself and make sure she hadn't done anything by having them look through security footage.

She couldn't just leave the woman on the floor though. Waking up not knowing where you were after a night of drinking was one of the worst experiences Shepard had come to know outside the battlefield. She couldn't imagine what it would be like for a civi to wake up on the floor of a strange room with soldiers after a night of drinking. The reporter would probably have a fit – especially since neither Shepard nor Shawcross could fill her in on what had happened since they could not remember. Then Shepard would have to call the Military Police on herself, the girl would probably have to go to counselling pending the investigation of Shepard's actions, followed by an inspirational writing bout detailing Shepard molesting her regardless of what security footage would reveal. Serrica could just see the headlines this evening: _Lieutenant Shepard Sexually Assaults Reporter After Night of Drunken Stupor_.

Serrica looked up and frowned at the marine in her bed – Jordan's pretty-boy was obviously bulkier and heavier than the reporter, but she guessed she could move him easily enough into Jordan's room. If the marine woke up, she was fairly certain she could either pull rank to get him to move on his own, or she could just tell him to shut up and enjoy the ride with his face against her chest until she got him to the other bed. It would go faster with just two people carrying the unconscious marine, however, and she calculatingly at Jordan for a few moments. She knew within a few moments that he was definitely not in any condition to lift anyone. Even now, Shawcross tried to hide that he was messaging his lower back and wincing as he picked up his clothes.

_He must have enflamed his back during the morning_ _and he hasn't taken any medication yet_, Serrica concluded, thoughts heavy with guilt. Even with medication and physiotherapy, Jordan's injuries from Torfan had taken more than three years to heal to the point where he could walk properly again. His abdominal wall and lower back would still take a few years to heal on Alliance benefits, though it was becoming easier to get the surgery required now that he had allowed her to use some of her pay to help.

She sighed at his stubbornness on the matter and looked around for pants. _Life always seems less stressful if I'm wearing pants_, she thought comically. At the very least, she thought wearing something other than underwear near the nether-regions might keep the reporter from scaring if she awoke.

Shepard rolled her eyes at her own train of thought, but she still found and slid her dress pants over her legs, not bothering to clip the top. She then moved back to the woman on the floor. She'd be the easier one to carry out of the two guests in Shepard's room, but if she woke while Shepard was carrying her, the ebony-haired woman's squirming alone would make the soldier drop her.

She knelt down, reached over and lightly nudged miss Delssandro a few times and, when that yielded no results, then pinched the woman's ear once. The reporter groaned, her eyes remaining shut. "Shepard?" she whispered out groggily.

_Ten points!_ Thought Serrica, breaking out into a smile despite her headache. _She isn't freaking out!_ Instead of vocalizing her internally significant victory, she said: "Miss Delssandro, I'd like to move you to somewhere more comfortable than my floor. Will you let me?"

The reporter, still refusing to open her eyes, frowned. "Floor?" she muttered, confused. The ebony-haired woman grasped the carpet of Serrica's room with a single hand and looked disgusted with herself.

"Delssandro?" asked Shepard again. "Can I move you?"

The reporter's eyebrows furrowed, but she clearly nodded to Shepard's question. The lieutenant took action and took a few breaths before leaning down towards the ebony-haired woman. She carefully moved the reporter's head and shoulders and brought it to rest against her chest. She wrapped one arm around the woman before moving into a very low squat. Taking the woman at the knees with her other arm, she squared herself off and lifted with her legs.

She exhaled and strained when she got completely to her feet; Delssandro didn't have much on her, but she was almost a foot taller than Shepard, so she weighed a little bit more than the soldier expected.

She caught a glimpse of Jordan grinning at her from the open doorway. "What?" she demanded, shifting her grip of the woman in her arms so that she didn't drop her.

"Even half nude, pants hanging off you and hungover as hell, you look like an Alliance recruitment poster," he said, chuckling. "Standing all tall with a casualty in your arms like a babe like that – it's an incredible gift. You should use it and bring in a few more credits."

Her eyes narrowed at him in a moment of irritation. When he shrugged and moved away, she started moving towards the door to her room. She unceremoniously body-checked the lock control, regretting it almost immediately for the dizzy feeling that shot through her head and vision on impact. She ignored Jordan laughing at her as she got out into their Officer's apartment. The door slid open into the small living room connected to a kitchen and Shepard concentrated on moving to her right towards Jordan's room immediately. She body-checked a second button to enter, almost vomiting on impact, but she recovered while getting into the room. "Lights: 20%." She croaked to the computer. She winced as the lights brightened, but managed to saunter over to carefully lay the reporter on the bed.

The woman seemed comatose now as Rica pulled the covers up and over the other woman. She waited a moment to make sure the reporter was truly slumbering and then fell back to message her temples in wake of the spinning room her head disagreed with entirely.

Analgesic drugs were required – ones that didn't give her lethal liver-damage after a night of drinking.

She shambled over to Jordan's tiny bathroom and hissed darkly as the lights flickered on brightly as she entered. Ordering them to dim wasn't going to do any good since Jordan hadn't repaired his command codes for the bathroom – she'd probably end up doing it eventually. She waved her hand in front of the mirror without looking, using the sink to steady herself in the blinding light. Her hand set off the sensors on the mirror to flip it round and open. She rummaged through Jordan's mirror-storage until she found an almost empty bottle of xelminal pills.

She took the bottle and motioned to close the mirror and lights as she moved out and back into the living room area, ordering the lights to increase to 40% as she did so. The door to Jordan's room stayed open behind her at her request – Jordan would probably need to get in there at some point and she'd rather know when Delssandro recovered enough to speak. The reporter's reaction to Shepard when she'd awakened meant that Serrica hadn't made a complete ass of herself over the course of her drinking, but that didn't mean she didn't want to talk about what had happened.

She twisted the bottle open and threw out one pill into her palm. Popping back her head, she tossed the pill in her mouth and chewed as the bottle directed. She sat down lazily in the small, uncomfortable couch and leaned her head back slowly, closing her eyes wearily.

After a few agonizing minutes, her headache began to fade and she breathed in and out for a few moments comfortably.

_Water_. Rehydration was crucial at this stage. Xelminal would only help her for so long. Sodium, calcium, vitamin B1, cysteine, thiamine and maybe a few jabs with crosses and uppercuts, plus kicks while things were cooking.

Shepard grinned since she knew she wouldn't be out here alone long if Jordan knew she was cooking and pushed off the couch to stand.

When she felt no dizziness, Serrica left the bottle of pills on a small glass coffee table near the island beside the couch before moving to the refrigerator cabinet. Waiving her hand in front of the sensor caused the cabinet to open out from the wall automatically. She fetched eggs, milk-supplement liquid, orange juice, and something that looked like it might be bacon, but in reality was some kind of enhanced meat Jordan had bought. It said on the label that it was salted and that was all Shepard really cared about right now. She didn't have the heart to tell Jordan that it didn't actually taste like bacon should though it had been some time since she'd had had the real thing.

Serrica twitched away from the memory of her family's farm on Mindoir and tried to focus on finding a pan to cook the eggs. It was an old ache now – a mercifully scarred gash, though it still itched from time to time. Random things would set it off, but Shepard usually allowed them to roll of her shoulders. That wasn't to say that nothing set her off. For one, she couldn't go to any school for very long without thinking of her sister, Sarah.

She blinked hard and shook her head. _No! You will not go there_. She ordered herself sternly as Serrica went to the over and turned on the burner for the pan. She threw in some synthesized cooking oil and waited until it was hot enough to crack and gently toss in the eggs and did so.

She wasn't sure if they were real chicken eggs. She hadn't bothered to read the label on them. Eggs were eggs at this point of the late morning and she flipped them at the right moment to make them the yoke the exact softness that Jordan loved, and then threw in a little bacon afterwards.

"Do I smell excellent the delicious scent of unborn chicks free from their confining prison with pig-ass cooking, my fair lady?" asked Jordan, emerging from her room with a sniffing action that 'unwittingly' lead him towards her cooking.

Serrica almost felt like hitting him. "Way to ruin my appetite with that description," she grunted incredulously. She put the eggs on a plate and cracked two new ones. "And truth be told, this is no pig-ass of any kind," she told him lowly, moving into another cabinet for salt and pepper to put on the eggs. She refused to look at him. _We used to have pigs… and chickens too._

"Shame," Jordan confessed with a pout. "I love the smell of pig-ass frying with the terribly, unfortunate none-spawn of chicken kind."

Shepard glared at him. "One more disambiguation like that and you aren't getting breakfast cooked at my behest," she warned, eyes narrowed.

"Really?" he replied his eyebrows rising in surprise as he started towards the kitchen island in the middle of their humble abode. His face was stern, having seen what kind of mood Shepard was in, until he hit his knee on the coffee table entering the kitchen area. He stopped to cringe, wince and breathed out a quiet, long 'owwwwwww', before limping towards her with a will that defied all odds.

She couldn't help but laugh at him. "Only you could make running into coffee table so damn hilarious," she confessed, flipping the eggs in the pan. She pointed the spatula at Jordan. "Sit," she ordered pointing from him to the seat at the other side of the kitchen's island.

Jordan pouted a little as he came to the island, but sat down gratefully. "As you wish, medal-ladyish," she said, bowing deeply. He frowned on his way up. "Is it 'medal-hogger' or 'medal-ladyish'? I can never tell." He was trying anything to keep Serrica's mind off of the fact that he'd brought up real bacon, knowing full well he'd hit a Mindoir heart-cord with it after he'd said it.

Shepard forcefully grinned at him, trying to let him change the subject that was reeling around her mind, but Jordan knew by her trying that his plan had not worked.

"No idea," said Serrica, her mood drying back into the stale memories of Mindoir when she saw that he wasn't going to joke some more. "And next time look for more sodium in the fake-pig-ass products," she said curtly, throwing more of the bacon into the pan when her own eggs were done. "We need stuff like that for mornings like this."

Jordan reached across and took her arm at the wrist slowly, but firmly. Serrica jaw when taunt, and she nearly tore her arm from him. He caught her gaze with his own though and she froze, oblivious to the hot fat spitting out and onto her bare arm from the pan below.

There was no pity in Jordan's eyes, just a question. Shepard's shoulders fell and she took a long breath. "I'm fine," she said firmly, her green eyes holding his now instead of the other way around. "It just… I think it's just the closeness of the date that's setting me off recently." She lost the eye contact and looked at the bacon cooking below her. "Couple of days more and Sarah would have been twenty…"

After a moment, Jordan nodded and let go of her wrist. "You're burning that," he said, pointing at the bacon in the pan, and then getting up to move around the island. "Take a seat and eat your eggs. I got this."

She opened her mouth to protest, but realized that it was pointless. "Fine," she sighed, taking a cleaning towel from a drawer to use on the grease spots that had hit her arm. She dumped the towel unceremoniously onto the glass-top, moved to grab the plate she'd put her eggs on with her right hand and then activated her omni-tool on her left arm. "But we're watching an old kids show of my choice." She growled, putting the plate on the coffee table Jordan had hit and sitting down on the couch to select said show via onmi-tool.

"When you say old…" began Shawcross. "Do you mean 'ancient' old, or 'last year' old?" He said taking out more bacon to cook.

Shepard chuckled, the darkness of her thoughts numbing, but not passing. "I mean 'ancient' old according to you," she replied, activating the glass display on the wall via omni-tool. The display was just to the left of Jordan's room and loaded her selection. The cartoon began playing while Shepard curled up on the couch and Shawcross kept cooking the bacon.

"So, we're watching a show about non-biotics who are sorta like biotics, but instead of dark energy mass effect fields, they're using… what? Magic?" asked Jordan after the opening introductory titles.

Shepard shrugged. "If you want to get technical about it, we could assume that certain peoples are attuned to and can manipulate certain types of materials on a molecular level using some kind of frequency-based signal produced in the brain. Assuming the humans in the show reside on a world developed with levo-animo acid-based forms of life: Waterbenders can specifically control all bodies of H2O as well as their temperature while Airbenders can control oxygen, nitrogen and argon gas compositions or parts there of – in fact, I'd venture to say that airbenders have an affinity for all gases though some seem to be easier to control than others, but I'd need more data to claim that. Earthbenders are attuned to rock and mineral formations, though it seems to be easier to control natural formations rather than heat-modified versions of them, such as steel or any industrialized metal. Controlling human-made metallic material requires special training, thus the term metalbender as you'll soon find out. Firebenders are a bit of mystery because they seem to be able to produce combustion without material to rapidly oxidize and thus generate an exothermic reaction. I suppose they might be able to physically produce a combustible gas of some kind though it's more likely a specific type of airbending. If we were to go with that last assumption, it would mean that firebenders could control certain combustible gas particles in the atmosphere, collect them into a confined area and then ignite them in some way. I'm thinking they ignite the gases via electrostatic discharge of some kind. That's the real reason they are a separate species from all other human benders since firebenders also seem to be able to create lightning bolts. But how they would create the type of massive electronic field necessary without something similar to what we use for biotic amps to create a discharge that causes the amount of damage seen on a show is a difficulty to say the least…"

Serrica turned her head from her thinking aloud when she heard the element go off on the stove. Jordan moved to her and tossed five strips of the fake-bacon onto her plate. "Eat your bacon, smarty-pants," he grunted, sitting down next to her. "I thought you wrote a paper on the themes and morals of kids-shows from this era, not applying the shows' laws to the real world," he said, bemused.

Serrica smiled taking a piece of bacon with her bare fingers and consuming it in a flash. "Often enough," she frowned. "Though if I tried to apply scientific theory to some of the other shows I studied, it would utterly miss the point. Thinking about the Benders from this show in a scientific manner does raze interesting questions, though. In a few ways, the specificity of the benders is like the biotic aptitude for controlling mass effect fields." She dusted off her fingers and lifted her hand. "Observe." Clenching the muscles in her right arm, Serrica felt the Element Zero nodules in her system activate and rush to the area around her fingertips. Her implant moderated the electrical nervous impulse required to create the tiny dark energy fields that laced the air around her hand and she felt the sudden, yet controlled weight of the mass increasing in the fields.

"My aptitude for biotic potential is limited by the programming in my implant and the amount of element zero that I can produce without tiring," she said playing with the blue-tinged fields in her fingers. "I can sustain a small field like this for some time without releasing it – as long as it's just idling and distorting the air around my hand without distorting my skin. But as soon as I need to channel it to do something…"

She got to her feet, turned on her heel and aimed for the fork she had used beside the pan. The field lurched towards the target and Serrica felt the surge of vertigo and a little nausea from the effort of doing so. The fork was successfully caught in her biotic field and she lashed her wrist back towards her when she saw it catch. The fork was lifted off the sturdy glass-topped island and quickly gyrated towards her in the air. She dropped the fields in her hand, caught the utensil with a snap of her fingers and sat back down.

"There, now I'm pooped," she said, making Jordan laugh and almost choke on his eggs. "But there are a lot of biotics who wouldn't be and there are a lot of biotics that would be able to hover that fork over here, or put it in a stasis field. Thus, there's a parallel between the benders in the show and biotics."

"You aren't pooped," he said through a cough after her speech. "You're just trying to make a point without using too much energy. Not to mention showing off the fact that you don't have a headache anymore. Speaking of which, you've been stealing my xelminal again. Where is it?" he demanded.

Serrica smiled, but chose to wolf down her eggs and bacon in a few moments before answering. "It's not stealing if I'm the one who bought it. It's on the coffee table you assaulted earlier – or maybe on the floor by it since you took out the table pretty damn hard. I need something to drink," she said, standing up again with her plate and heading towards the automated washing station. She placed the plate and the fork in two separate locations and pressed two keys to start the cycle only to wince at a pain in the fingers of her right hand.

Alarmed at how sharp the pain was, Shepard inspected her hand and found that her knuckle was fairly bruised.

"Jordan," she called, still frowning at the injuries and noticing the indentation of a tooth in one knuckle on her strong hand. "Did I get into a fist-fight with someone last night?" she said in confusion and more than a little worry.

There was a dead silence. "Yup," Jordan said curtly from the couch.

Serrica activated her onmi-tool and waved it in front of the refrigeration cabinet, causing it to turn as reflective as a mirror. She found a cut at her lip and large bruise on her right shoulder. She winced. "Did I _loose_?" she asked, unbelieving.

Holy shit; there was even a light bruise on her jaw above her scar! She couldn't remember the last time she'd lost a brawl! It was almost exciting that there was competent fighter hanging out on Jump Zero that could kick her ass.

"Not really," came the dark reply.

Shepard's head jerked back from her reflection and she snorted. "What do you mean, 'not really'?" she chided, turning towards the couch. "Why? Was it an ex-lover or something?"

"Not really…" he husked, almost muttering to himself.

Serrica marched over to the couch. "Come'on, Jordan." She crossed her arms and lent on the couch's covers overtop her friend. "Who was it?"

"It was El'hajar's sister," he said glumly picking at the crumbs of bacon.

Shepard froze. _Corporal El'hajar, first name Fadi, service number __6513-OI-0945__, he was 26 when he died, dark skin, brown eyes, big teeth, survived by his sister, brother and father._ She knew all of the dead from Torfan by heart.

"I didn't see it start," Jordan said while coming to his feet to gage her reaction. "But I know you took a bit of a beating without throwing any punches before suddenly fighting back. At least that's what some of the crowd told me afterwards."

She could barely hear him because of the ringing in her ears. She felt dizzy.

She fumbled to activate her omni-tool, but Jordan caught her hand. She hadn't seen him move around the couch and she pulled her arm back and out of his grip. "Did the MPs arrest her?" Shepard asked roughly – her throat felt dry even as she keyed through Alliance channels on her omi-tool.

Jordan nodded carefully. "Yes, because she assaulted you in the hallway, Rica." He said palm raised, finger spread and motioning for her to calm down. "You can't be upset at them for doing their job. I don't know how you ended it exactly since I was trying to guide MPs through the crowd to you. But I was too late and you knocked her out by the time I got there with the cavalry."

"Why?" she fumed at him using a nickname Jordan hadn't heard her say since Torfan. "Why the fuck did I hit back? I could have let her wail on me all day and I doubt it would have fazed me. And even if I hadn't let her, I'd have been able to pin her without hurting her." She was searching for the main MP office IP to connect to now, her face becoming more frantic. "I hit her hard enough in the teeth to leave _indents_ in my knuckle, Jordan. I must have gotten a few full jabs in."

"Just one." The new quiet, corrective voice to their conversation almost made Shepard jump. "You only hit her once and that was only after she attacked that reporter that came to your defence. Hell of a punch too and you even caught her afterward before she could hit the floor too hard. I didn't even see you move – you knocked her out so fast." Corporal Firzen yawned, coming into the room from Shepard's with a slow, careful stretch.

Jordan took advantage of the distraction by cancelling Shepard's connection to the IP she was trying to connect to. She glared at him for doing so, but was more interested in what Daniel knew to argue.

"What happened, exactly?" she asked the corporal in an easy-going, coaxing tone she'd learned from her favorite instructor from her basic military qualification course. She motioned towards couch for him to sit and fetched the xelminal bottle from the floor as the corporal groggily obliged. Jordan took the cue and went to fetch some water.

"Well, first I have to say that I tried to stop her," said Daniel taking the pills offered to him. He stopped, trying to focus on the pill in his hand for a moment. "Quick question though: what am I about to eat?"

Shepard chuckled at his reaction. "Xelminal. It's an analgesic. Don't worry; it won't destroy your liver. Jordan takes it for his migraines and we both take it when after nights and mornings like the one we just had." She offered the bottle for Dan to read. "Only take one though and you have to eat something else as soon as possible afterward to keep it from killing your stomach. Chew if you want, but it's an acquired taste." She glanced at Jordan, who had already begun making eggs and bacon for their guest. She smiled at him as she fetched the glass of water Jordan had filled and put at the end of the kitchen island and brought it back to said guest. "But, to keep us on track, you tried to stop her…" She motioned for Daniel to keep speaking as she handed him the water.

"She was right-pissed-drunk and she wouldn't have tried to fight you otherwise, ma'am," he said and then quickly tossed the pill into his mouth and drank some water before continuing. "She's always wanted to confront you about her brother." He paused, unsure. "Ah, you do know who her brother was, ma'am?" he asked with a wince.

Shepard nodded, making a mental note at what part of the conversation between herself and Jordan Daniel was aware of. "I remember _everyone_ who died at Torfan, Daniel," she offered, keeping that feeling in the pit of her stomach from reaching her face as she confessed. "Aamina's father refused to speak to me after news of his son's death… and that I was the main cause." She couldn't keep the grimace off her face now. "Had I been… more on the sober side of things this morning, I would have been a little more tactful when meeting Corporal El'hajar's sister."

Daniel nodded; though he seemed surprised that she'd chosen to use his first name. "I gotch'ya, ma'am. It wasn't as bad as you think. You didn't say much, but it was clear you knew who Aamina was when she started raging at you in the hallway." He put the water on the small table beside the couch. "When I failed to calm her down, she took a swing at you." He looked at the scar on Shepard's face and the light bruise on her cheek just above it. "You just stood there and took it. And the hard slap that came afterwards. And the body shots as El'hajar remembered some of the basic hand-to-hand boxing she got on her basic."

Serrica frowned and looked down at her chest and stomach. Sure enough, there were a few small bruises along her ribcage and stomach on both sides. She felt them, making sure there were no sharp pains to indicate a fracture or break, but concluded that were just bruises.

"That's when that reporter showed up out of nowhere," continued Dan as she looked up from her inspection. "She started shouting for Aamina to stop – trying to get her to notice that you weren't fighting back." He shook his head. "In a hallway full of a Alliance soldiers and the only person who decides to try and stop the stupidity in front of us is a civi," he commented in disgust and shame. "Loraina caught one of Mina's hands before she uppercut you and shouted at her to stop. That's when El'hajar punched her in jaw and then you woke up from wherever she'd sent you when she'd first started wailing on you. The reporter wasn't even staggering from the blow before you reacted. I was too busy looking dumbstruck at the reporter when you apparently just slid into the perfect stance and threw a right hook into Mina's jaw. She was out before you caught her and brought her gently to the floor. Then you went to check on the reporter with me."

Jordan grinned. "Sounds like you something you'd do, Rica," she said, tossing the bacon in after the eggs were done. "And now that I think about it, I guess you were checking on someone when I finally got through the crowds. Though I was a little distracted."

Daniel grinned. "That's because you were too busy trying to get the MPs to check the security vids instead of detain everyone. They did finally check at my behest." He turned back to Shepard. "I knew both the guys coming in and the hallways have 24 hour recording and we were right beside one of the cameras. That's why they didn't arrest you. Pretty sure they put a tab on you all night afterwards to make sure you didn't get into any more trouble – don't really know why they didn't do that in the first place to be honest, but there you go – but the vid proved you just stood there and took it and only acted when she attacked someone else."

Shepard breathed a short sigh of relief. "Thank you for telling me," she said calmly and moved out of the way in time to let Jordan through with food.

"Holy mother of mercy," confessed Dan, drooling at the sight of the full plate. "I could kiss you." Taking the plate with a wink he added: "Again."

Jordan chuckled. "Later. Eat first – you haven't had anything since we left Jump Shots and that was almost twelve hours ago now."

Daniel wolfed down his food. "What time is it?" he asked between bites.

"1204 hrs," replied Shepard from the kitchen, seeing the time indicated on the wall next to the refrigeration unit. She was pouring herself a glass of orange juice when Daniel jumped from the couch, tripped and landed awkwardly on the floor in front of Jordan.

She frowned, getting up on her tip-toes to see why he'd fallen over and saw Jordan, equally confused at the Corporal's reaction, helping the man up.

"I have to report to dock 41 in half an hour! I didn't get the day off!"

Jordan's eyes went wide and he looked at Shepard pleadingly as Daniel threw himself back towards Shepard's room to collect wayward uniform pieces – he'd come out with only his dress pants.

Serrica simply shrugged at Jordan. "Hey, I carried my date to another room before the xelminal while you laughed at me, remember?"

Jordan pouted at her in full force then, his eyes glassy and lip trembling and Shepard rolled her eyes. "Ah, hells and damnation, Jordie…" she hissed at his forlorn expression. "Fine!" She sighed in exasperation, putting her glass down. "Okay, here's what we do: You make sure he can run the hallways to his room without some jackass yelling at him for dress and deportment. I'll collect the rest of his stuff and put it in a safe spot in your room and help the both of you look not like shit." She started moving towards her room, but pointed at him with a threatening finger. "You get to follow him in the hallways to his room though. Go pick us up some 'non-bacon' with more salt it while you're at it."

Jordan clasped her shoulder in thanks and they went about their plan.

The cruellest officers would be out in force today to spot any hungover soldier and punishing them for the smallest misdemeanours. With a lieutenant following him, Firzen would be immune to any of these unless he too wasn't dressed properly. Jordan would play the unhappy officer and explained to Dan that he'd 'chase' him passed the main corridors with some dramatic yelling. Once Firzen got to his room and changed into work-dress, he'd be in the clear. The trick was getting him there in time.

Presently, Shepard straightened Jordan's dress-blues and stood back to inspect. She winced. "Don't let anyone look too close," she said, trying to flatten out a crease that was differently not going to flatten out under her hand. "But it's passable."

Shawcross came to attention and saluted her. "Will do, boss." He turned to Dan, who came staggering out with no tunic and no headdress. "You ready?"

He nodded feverently as Shepard gave him a quick look-over. "Good thing Shawcross is going with you," she warned, focusing on the plainly seen stain on the cuff of his shirt. "You look like shit. You owe him a second, very sober date with excellent dancing and lots of sex at the very least."

Jordan elbowed her hard enough in the ribs to bruise. She coughed out instead of saying whatever she was going to say next, lurching a little from the blow.

"Pay no mind to my famous roommates' ramblings," insisted Shawcross in the meantime. "You don't owe me anything. I'm happy to help."

Shepard smiled outright at his altruism, but couldn't help but give him an encouraging wave as the two men left. "Have fun and don't forget the bacon." The door slid shut behind Jordan's glare at her and she couldn't help but laugh in the aftermath.

It was several moments before she decided it was the right moment enough to call the reporter out of hiding.

"You can tell whatever story you want about me," said Shepard plainly, walking towards the glass-top stove again and turning the elements on to cook for the other woman. "Just leave Jordan and Daniel out of it and I'll make you breakfast. Also, I'll refrain from breaking your legs."

Loraina Delssandro emerged sheepishly from Jordan's open room, holding one arm tight and staring at the Lieutenant at the stove.

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_So… I think omni-tools work via implant – I can't think of anything else. The codex isn't clear on it at all – especially since people seem to be able to use them without suits on. If that's not consistent with lore, somebody give me a shout, bitte?_

_Never did I think I would need to research electronic fields so much in a single day for a fanfic. It was fun, but I'm not sure if I got it – I might have to go and talk to my smarter-than-me buddy to discuss both mass effect fields and the possible impossibilities of the Avatar television show._

_That being said, if the bit about biotics doesn't make sense, it's because it doesn't and I tried lacing just enough realism to make it seem believable. The discussion these characters have at that moment isn't there to teach you about field harmonics and whether or not dark energy mass effect fields are possible, it's there to show you: that Serrica Shepard is the kind of woman who'll sit down and discuss a question from all angles honestly; that she thinks aloud when she's among friends; that she's classified as below average to average in the use of Telekinetic and Spatial Distorting biotic fields; that she's passionate about how her world (galaxy) works; and that she's one of those insanely coordinated people who can to eat crispy bacon with a fork (-.- you know who you are and, unlike Shepard, I know you fail at it as often as I do and think no one notices…)._

_Xelminal doesn't exist, but, damn, do I wish it did. I specifically made it up to have a 'hang-over' drug that Shepard and friends can take, but it's also an excellent, futuristic migraine medicine that has no side effects even if you combine it with alcohol – hence why Jordan has it (he's an L2 biotic as we will find out later when Shepard talks with Kaiden). It's also expensive – which is why Serrica buys it and not Jordan._

_And yes, I did set up Shepard's heart to be ripped out of its moorings when she talks to Ashley later on – nice of you to notice that I'm a horrible person who puts their protagonists through hell._

_Big thanks to everyone following or favorited the story so far. You'll have to put up with my terrible update time and strange sense of humour, but I hope you are at least enjoying yourselves with what I stick up here._


	4. Chapter 4: Honesty, Honestly

_Edited in an attempt to not be incredibly long and boring!_

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_Chapter 4: Honesty, Honestly_

"I suppose you knew I was up the whole time?" asked Loraina Delssandro with a cringe, possibly taking the threat Shepard had just made to her legs seriously.

Shepard was stunned when she heard a full sentence immerge from the reporter's mouth, and the thick, breathy, _beautiful_ accent that came with it. The lieutenant hid her reaction by concentrating _very_ hard on the pan in front of her well enough that she considered herself lucky._ Of course, she **has** to have an Irish accent, _she thought in horror. _I'm doomed if she tries to sleep with me – might as well just take my pants off right now. _She'd always had a soft spot for anyone with an Irish accent. She wasn't sure if it just triggered something phonetically in her system somehow, or if it was some form of mind-control imbedded as a joke from some experiment in the N3 program – all of her course-mates from that part of the N training had soft spots for the same kind of accent for some reason.

"I'm not sure when you started listening," she confessed carefully when she recovered from the trance the reporter's accent had put her in and fetching a plate to put the eggs and bacon onto and a fork to eat them with. "I knew you were awake for when I had to move you out of my room by cradling your head against my bosom and cupping your ass." She looked up to gage the reporter's reaction to the vulgar suggestion and was stunned again by the fact that Loraina had bright sky-blue eyes regarding her cautiously. _Get it together, German_, she reprimanded herself harshly for loosing concentration again.

"I know… but I just woke up fully now," replied miss Delssandro, though she did visibly straighten and crossed her arms uncomfortably as if holding herself.

_So, that's a 'I heard everything after you set me down and was pretending to sleep',_ Serrica registered, reading the reporter's body language, before returning her gaze to the eggs she was breaking._ But you don't want me to know that. Alright, I'll play. Though it doesn't mean I can't antagonize you a little_. "Good. I'm glad you aren't a prig about it."

Loraina bristled visibly at that. "Alright, I heard most of the conversation with that corporal," she confessed with a wince. "What I don't remember is the bit in between from after you suggested shots was the best way not to feel the bruise on my face to you waking me up this morning." She messaged said bruise on her cheek and walked to the well-used couch to collapse.

Shepard's eyebrows rose. Honesty from a reporter: does not compute. "The shots to treat the onset of inflammation sounds like me," she replied with a grin, flipping the eggs and prepping the bacon. She frowned. "I'm sorry about the fight. Had I been sober, I wouldn't have let you get mixed up in it."

"I heard. Who was she, if I may ask?"

Serrica laughed at that. "Oh, come'on, Loraina," replied Serrica woefully. "You know who she was. If Dan was to be believed, you got the drift when she started yelling at me last night: her brother was under my command at Torfan. I got him killed and his sister was pissed at me because of it." The reporter didn't reply and Shepard couldn't see her since she was sitting on the couch away from her. "What I'm curious about was why you got mixed up in the fight in the first place. Why defend me?" she asked, and then paused to wait for an answer.

She didn't get one until several moments later when Loraina sighed heavily. "Nobody was doing anything," she said as if cursed. "They just watched, expecting you to do something – anything, really – but most of them were hoping you'd put her in her place. When it was obvious that you weren't going to fight back, I just wanted her to stop." She got up from her couch and looked nervously at Serrica. "I don't have the stomach to watch someone just _take_ getting beaten like that, so I tried to stop it."

Shepard regarded her guest for a time, her hard-green eyes unusually soft on the reporter for a moment. "Fair enough," she said finally, and then chuckled when she returned to the food. "Pretty sexy stuff: coming to the defence of a damsel in distress such as myself. No wonder we hooked up."

_Oooo… careful, Rica_, she chastised herself, though she kept her gaze on the food in the pan, scraping the bacon and moving about. _Be careful how you flirt. She might seem honest enough, but she could be both looking for and wanting a story pretty bad. Don't give her more than you can afford to loose._

But the reporter looked at her with contempt instead of flirting back. "You are hardly a damsel in distress, Lieutenant Shepard." Then she smiled, charming and bright. "And you actually saved me, if you'll recall. I'm actually incredibly confused as to how we 'hooked up' as you so put it since I don't remember much from the conversation after the shots."

Shepard ducked her shoulders and cringed before looking back at the reporter while turning off the stove. "I'm going to be straight with you," she stated with regret – damn, those eyes were gorgeous! "I don't remember a thing after Jump Shots' last night. I don't remember meeting or defending you and I don't remember whatever mind-blowing make-out session that came after that."

Loraina smiled despite messaging her temples – probably a headache. "That's a shame because I was kind of hoping you _weren't_ going to be straight with me." She frowned and Shepard had to resist a chuckle so she smiled mischievously instead. "That sounded a lot better in my head," she confessed, messaging her temples more adamantly.

"It wasn't the worst I've heard, but it was pretty terrible," agreed Serrica, putting the bacon on the plate and bringing the food with her to the couch. "Here. Eat this and we'll see what we can do about that headache – I'm very experienced in this sort of recovery period."

"I'll bet," said the reporter taking the plate and fork gratefully. "But this isn't my first rodeo, Lieutenant. I know from excursions with other soldiers that the food your cooking is essential in the least."

Shepard smirked at Loraina's response as the lieutenant fetched the bottle of xelminal and shook it experimentally to see how many pills were left in it. They were running out, she thought regrettably, and she'd have to get some in the next week or so. Jordan was right – she really did have to stop using this shit, but it was one the easiest ways of fixing a hangover – albeit that it was an expensive one. She took a pill out of their dwindling supply and walked over to Delssandro. "Swallow it if you don't want to chew it. I'll get you something to wash it down with if you need."

She walked over to the cabinet for a glass and the reporter frowned at the pill she'd been given. "Can I refuse, or will you break my legs for that too?" she asked glowering at the pill now on her plate.

Shepard laughed. "Oh, for – it's just xelminal, for crying out loud! It will kill you're headache and dizziness faster than you can say 'Don't-write-horrible-things-about-lieutenant-Shepard', so stop complaining." She filled the glass with water. "And that breaking-your-legs comment earlier was just a joke," she added quickly, hoping she hadn't completely inserted her foot into her mouth.

But Loraina snorted – a very uncouth snort that Shepard approved of whole-heartedly – but accepted the water and drowned the pill with it. "Not much of a joke," she muttered, pulling a pill out, eating it, and then getting back to her food.

When she was done, Delssandro noticed that Shepard had sat down beside her at the other end of the couch and was watching her intently. She swallowed her last piece of egg and said: "I'm not going to write anything."

Serrica's was shocked again. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," replied Loraina sternly, her brow furrowed. "I'm not here to report on you and while I know a story about you're personal life would be worth quite a bit, I'm not an idiot."

Serrica tilted her head to one side. "I never said you were. But, just out of curiosity, what would make you an idiot?" she asked warily. It wasn't often she met a altruistic reporter, let alone one who sympathized with her constant war of a attrition with the media.

Loraina screwed her face into a scowl, but she refused to look as Serrica. "Getting into your life for the media perks of it. You don't deserve that and I would be an idiot not to see it," she said quietly and very simply. "You've been running from the media and I get that. I especially get it after what I saw last night," she explained, keeping her attention on the cartoon running on the screen in front of them. "Torfan must have been a nightmare and Elysium was probably not as straightforward or as easy as everyone seems to think it was." Her face became darker still. "And… my father was serving on _SSV Einstein_ when it went to give aid to Mindoir – I can't imagine –" She shook her head. "There's nothing I can say or write that I find… satisfactory to say about how awful it must have been." Her voice nearly cracked at the mention of it – Mindoir had made her father seek retirement from the Alliance and he still saw a councillor about what he had seen there.

Shepard's neck hair prickled at the mention of _it_ and she closed her eyes to control her thoughts and keep them in the present. When she knew she was in no threat of losing her composure, she opened her eyes to continue listening to the woman on the couch beside her.

"My point is that you don't deserve to be hounded for every scrap of your life after the facts." She took a steadying breath and turned her head towards the Lieutenant. "Even super-heroes need their privacy." She smiled sadly at that last and so did Shepard.

"Thanks," replied the lieutenant nodding to the other woman. It's all she could think of saying. What else could you say after sincerity like that?

Loraina's gaze shifted from side to side nervously. "You're welcome, I guess." Her eyes trained onto the cartoon she just noticed had been playing on a low volume all this time.

After a few moments, she frowned in confusion. "What the hell am I watching here?" she asked, seeing a character throw an earth-chunk into another character that blocked it by… throwing water up in the form of a shield? "And why is it even on? Is this yours?" she emphasised, not making sense of the images.

She turned to Shepard for an explanation and was instead caught in a hungry emerald snare that made her breath stagger as if she'd been punched in the face again.

_I'm going to regret this, but I do not give a **damn**!_ Serrica moved quickly after being discovered and brought her lips to Loraina's in a smooth, yet forceful union. She quickly straddled the startled young journalist, being careful not to let her full weight sit on Delssandro as she worked her fingers through the other woman's hair. _Shit, it is just as soft at I thought_.

"Fuck!" hissed Loraina after a moment's pause between adamant kisses. She brushed her fingers across her assaulted lips in slight surprise as Shepard pulled back to let her breathe, trying to control the sudden desire in her veins. "Was it something I said?" She laughed, grinning like a fool, those bright-blue eyes wide in surprise, but not uninviting.

Shepard shrugged her shoulders as she settled into her perch on the other woman's hips. "Maybe," she said uncaringly. "I'll never tell." Then she winked before abruptly returning to her assault. "My room's the one on the right from your perspective." She mentioned helpfully between kisses as the reporter wrapped her arms around the soldier's waist and pulled her down and in.

Loraina pulled out and away again suddenly. "You're serious?" she asked, flabbergasted and more than a little shocked that things had progressed this quickly.

Serrica nodded fervently. "Yeah. Unless you say no?" An eyebrow cocked up and Delssandro looked torn.

Only when Serrica tried to get off did the ebony-haired woman react and grasp both of the soldier's hips possessively. "No, I…" She hesitated with her words, but her eyes looked up towards the sheer intensity of Shepard's staring down at her and she took a deep mouthful of air. "I mean: Yes. Definitely, yes," she breathed out clearly, shooting her mouth out towards Serrica's willing lips.

A throaty, almost growl of a chuckle escaped Shepard then as she devoured the woman before her.

_I'm going to regret this_, her brain echoed her previous thought as she started taking off Delssandro's light shirt and feeling the breast underneath the bra with one hand and keeping her fingers running through that ebony hair with the other one. _But not right now._

Private Melser hated delivery assignment. She hated them because it usually involved some officer forgetting they were supposed to report in to someone, somewhere or that there was some urgent message that the officer had forgotten to check… there were a million different reasons she hated delivery duties.

_Guess I shouldn't have gotten myself charged then_. She'd been off charge-parade for about two days now, but she was still getting crap work from the higher-ups of the admin world because of one stupid mistake while she was near a rear admiral.

_Should never have opened my big, fat mouth about our detail_. She cringed at the thought and looked at the data-pad she held closely.

"One more," she muttered under her breath as she walked the hallways. Finally, her assignment would be over and she'd be able to go back to security detail. She'd never thought she'd be looking forward to being a glorified doorwoman the labs, but she was practically skipping to the last door on her list.

She read the detail: Officer's quarters #33R, priority 1 message waiting for one resident 1st Lieutenant Shepard to acknowledge. Melser did a double take at the name and then looked at the door in front of her in awe. Surely, it couldn't be _the_ Shepard? It couldn't be!

She stood polaraxed in front of the door for who knows how long before bringing forward the courage to push the summons button to the right of the sliding door.

No one answered.

Melser frowned, checked the public security log to make sure the officer was registered as 'in-quarters' before pressed the holographic button again.

Growing impatient after a few pushes, she was ready to call the maintenance crews to repair a broken communication line when the quarters when the door slid open.

Annoyed green eyes and short, messy red hair on a tense face greeted the private. "Yes? What is it?" she prompted when Melser just gawked at her for the first few seconds.

_Holy shit! It is Shepard!_ However, the lieutenant looked in no mood to have a conversation since she was dressed in nothing but a light black t-shirt with some sweat-pants, and had obviously just gotten out of bed. So Melser activated her omni-tool to activate Alliance Military Mail Network on a secure IP. "Message for you to acknowledge, ma'am," she managed to blurt out hastily. "Priority 1 from Alliance Command – you haven't checked it yet and it was sent to you this morning. Admiral Hackett has placed a watch order on the message – he's awaiting your confirmation."

"Hackett," replied Shepard with a dark, husky voice. "He commands the 5th. I'm not even with his fleet." She activated her own omni-tool and linked hers with the channel on Melser's to gain access. She tapped in her thirteen letters with numbers password privately and scrolled down to the message Melser was talking about.

She froze halfway through the first line, her brow furrowed and eyes slightly wider in instant alertness. Melser wasn't even sure she was breathing. The only thing that kept her from looking like a true statue was that her eyes slowly moved side-to-side and downward, reading the message in its entirety.

"They've promoted me to Lieutenant Commander and made me an XO on board a ship in the 5th Fleet." Shepard stated and finally started breathing again, but her brows remained glued together in either anger or confusion – Melser couldn't tell which one it was.

"Congratulations, ma'am?" replied Melser, unsure of what to say. In any other tone other than the one Shepard had just used, the private would be far more jovial for any officer promoted and sent to serve as Executive Officer on any ship.

Those hard green eyes snapped up from her deployment and transfer message to look at the private and Melser felt the displeasure of a sudden flight instinct grip her stomach and spine. "Thank you for your courier duties," said Shepard in a terse, authoritative tone as she acknowledged her receipt of the message. The eyes darted to the private's epaulette. "Dismissed, Private."

Melser had never snapped to attention so fast in her five-year career. She straightened her right hand and fingers and saluted. "Yes, Commander Shepard, ma'am." And she turned and fled down the hallway.

Closing her sliding door, Shepard kept her omni-tool open and read through the email again, still flabbergasted by its contents:

-=AMMN, SECURE CHANNEL, PRIORITY MESSAGE=-

FROM: ALLIANCE TRANSFER CMMD (REF. # 45334-006-004/1579)

CC: 6 .fa; 4 .fa; 4 .fa; 20 .fa; 701 .fa; 3 .fa; 12 .fa;

TO: 45 .fa

Lieutenant Shepard, S.A, service no. 5923-AC-2826, you here-by promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

You are also here-by transferred from 4th Fleet, 70th Service Regiment to 5th Fleet, 63rd Flotilla and assigned to the _SSV Normandy_ as an Executive Officer. Transport has been arranged for you from Gagarin Station to Arcturus Station for your new position as stated in the AFTPO below.

Ticket authorization activated: PRIORITY PASSENGER – fast packet flight.

Arrive with all kit as designated in Precis 006 – "Alliance Navy Kit List" ONE HOUR before departure.

Time of departure: 0600hrs-06-Nov-2183

Transport: _SSV Hringhorn_, Alliance Military Transport Frigate, ID# 7U-87001/LQ-PO401

Contact: Serviceman Kalls, Main desk, Dock 12, Gagarin Station

AFTPO – MESSAGE BEGINS

Position Number: JHG85601-224/OV

Organization: 5th FLT 63rd FLOT - Roto 1/SSV NORMANDY/CLASSIFIED/

Location: Arcturus Station - Dock 182

Description: XO – SHIP COMBAT CMDR/GRD TEAM COMBAT CMDR

Ranks: Lt Cmdr - Capt

MOS ID Min requirement: Alliance Navy 1132/N7 – Alliance Marine 10007/N7

Sourcing Chain: 5th FLT

Dates: 10-Nov-2183 - 05-Nov-2186

Fill Due Date: 04-Nov-2183

Pos Start: 10-Nov-2183

Rank Type: Commissioned Member

Pos. Cmpnt: Reg F, N7

Pos. Gender: Not Set

Pos. Security: TOP SECRET

Status Code: ACTIVE

Suggested Source: N/A

Fin. Code: 3963TX COST 5th FLT OR 3486AL BL AS APPLICABLE IO GRR0098LOTY

Point of Contact: SEE ARTURUS DOCKING ADMIN (Dock 182)

Primaries: 1

Nomination: Lt Cmdr Shepard, S.A. (SN 5923-AC-2826)

Nom. Cmpnt: Reg F, N7 Op

Nom. UIC: 7777 (ICA)

Nom. MOS: N7 Officer (All MOS 03 Inf, ALL MOS 100 Spc Navy)

Nomination Dates: 04-Nov-2183-10-Nov-2186

Backups: 0

Update User: A-5th FLT on 04-Nov-2183

Owning HQ: 5th FLT (#2307543, level 1)

AFTPO – MESSAGE ENDS

Ack your receipt of this message, ASAP.

-=AMMN, SECURE CHANNEL, PRIORITY MESSAGE=-

_Some shit must have hit the fan pretty damn hard_, she thought, trying to think of any reason why they would need to promote her and then send her off without her hearing about either. She hadn't received so much as a peep from Command since she had transferred to this station three months ago. Now they were transferring her to a Classified warship? She scrolled down to the Alliance Forces Taskings, Plans and Operations message attached to her strangely direct and mechanically written promotion letter and transport orders to find the name of the ship.

The _SSV Normandy_. She shook her head, turned off her omni-tool, and searched her memory for the name. A report on that ship had been sent to her two months ago through N7 channels – a deep-space frigate with turian-human design and a new stealth-drive system. It was scheduled to have its maiden voyage soon. Which meant that the 10th of November had to be the start of a shakedown mission.

_What am I doing on the shakedown voyage of a prototype ship?_ Her AFTPO had contracted her for three years as well so she was to be expected to serve as XO for quite a while. "Crap, what the hell is going on?" she asked aloud, heading back towards her room and stripping naked in intervals on the way there. She'd have to talk to someone when she got back on duty tomorrow – maybe even pull in a few favours with Commander Elman, a fellow graduate from the same N7 program, to find out what was what. Now, however, she threw herself in compartmentalization mode:_ I can't do anything about it now. I'll have to deal with it later. Right now, I'm on **leave** and there's one heck of a fun and damn talented looker in my bed right now. Priorities, Rica: priorities._

Squaring her shoulders, she walked back into her room with confidence and wolfish grin.

"You alright?" asked Loraina from under some of Rica's lighter sheets.

Shepard shrugged, but internally reproved herself for saying anything out loud and peeking the other woman's curiosity. "Just some military crap I need to figure out later," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose as she shimmied back into bed with the journalist under the covers.

Delssandro pulled the commander's hand away from her face and kissed Serrica on the nose, then the mouth. "Has it killed the mood?" she asked tracing Shepard's cheek and neck scar with a finger lightly. She let the commander move her head away with a frown, only to smile when Serrica bit her roaming finger gently.

Serrica smiled back and let go of the other woman's finger. "You're an awful reporter," she commented, moving closer. "You should be trying to wheedle out all of my secrets while we're in bed or something equally as devious."

Loraina pulled the soldier on top of her insistently. "All in good time," she tsked, eyes twinkling. "I have far better uses for you at the moment. Interested?"

As she kissed the ebony-haired woman as reply, Shepard couldn't help but fail at pushing the message she'd just received from her thoughts. But damn if she didn't try her utmost to do so.

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_Yeah, the Irish are sexy people. If you can imagine Loraina having something close to an Ulster Irish accent, you can see why Shepard's pants would be off quite quickly. 'Nough said._

_I really like Delssandro's character. She's actually a sneaky BAMF (you can't tell from this chapter though), but she has enough self-respect and Shep-respect to not be stupid. In fact, she's kinda what I wanted Diana Allers to be in ME3, but... yeah… We can't always get what we want. -.-_

_I might do a "Stolen Moments" à-la-Snafu100 type of deal, but make the side stories specifically from the perspectives of Shepard's lovers, including Delssandro. I will not be like the 2rd and 3rd game and simply fade to black whenever there's sexiness to be had. And so there'll be some pretty intense chapters from Shepard's POV in this story – there's just not much to say from Shep's POV with Loraina other than the obvious: they had sex. *hands open* Voila! That being said, there is a significantly large and steamy scene that has been removed from this chapter… hence, why I want to put it elsewhere. It also explains more about who Loraina actually is and why I like her so much._

_I also have some little stories that wouldn't fit in later chapters, so I might stuff them into the 'Mass Effect Moments' along with the outtake steamy bits._

_Damn, that poor Private running messages though! Sucks to be her!_


	5. Chapter 5: All I Ask

_Okay. So, this story has been organized in a completely different manner. For one, I'll try to keep the chapters a little shorter, thus the retro-fit of all previous chapters before this one and the separation of this chapter after I wrote it. For two, the outline has gone through some serious modifications (thus the delay in getting this chapter up), though it is no less detailed then it was – I had to go through and fix some timeline and character issues, but only time will tell if I was successful or not and if it works with the new format._

_Big thanks to anyone who read this, favourited it, or is following: you must all have the patience of a saint! _

_BIG thanks to N.Q. Wilder for basically being my editor, kicking my ass into gear, and bringing up questions that made me try to clarify and rethink any and all short-comings. WOOO! _

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_Chapter 5: All I Ask_

Serrica's scar itched. Tilting her head to the side so she could scratch it pulled her shoulder into view by accident and she stared uncomfortably at the extra rank bars now located there. Lieutenant-Commander Shepard: that was confusing as all hells. But whatever Command wanted from her with this new rank, nobody knew. Not even her oldest and best friend from the N program in Alliance, Commander Almas Elman, knew. Serrica had contacted Almas as soon as she'd heard what her chain of command in 70th Service knew – which was shit all.

Unfortunately, when she'd told Elman as much about her information, the Commander couldn't give her much either. "This wasn't a decision made by the Admirals though," Al had said in the vid-call. "I can't find out who actually put the motion forward and I don't have access to the reasons behind it, but your promotion has Alliance Parliament prints all over it, if that helps."

"Not really," Shepard muttered her reply to the info now as she readjusted her duffle bag on her shoulder and walked through the doors leading to docking port 128.

It was all bullshit right now. And it was obvious she wasn't going to get anything from anyone until she got on board the _Normandy_. She sighed, walking through the narrow hallway that led to the desk at its end. At least it would go quickly since this was the least busy docking port she'd ever seen in her career – there was only one other person in the checking line to get access to the dock and the only sound was the Alliance News Network broadcasting on a display above the desk.

She did a double take when she saw that Delssandro was on the screen talking with the mother of a biotic who spoke of abuse by the earlier Biotic Temperance Training program. _It's gotta be that documentary that she'd been working on,_ she thought with a smile.

Shepard had, after about an hour of convincing, promised to keep in contact with Loraina, if only to have a voice in the ANN to defend her if something went wrong later. Rica didn't like how tawdry it made her feel to stay in contact with someone simply for the woman's connections, but Lor had made a spirited case about Shepard eventually losing her battle with the media. As such, she'd need someone on the inside to give her a hand when the enterprising zealots started to gain ground.

She readjusted her headdress with her free hand, shaking her head a little at the woman on screen as the officer at the desk in front of her headed towards the elevator on the right. Delssandro had had no objections to their one-day stand, as it had inevitably been. While the reporter had admitted that she wouldn't have said no to more, she'd understood what Shepard had meant by 'it wouldn't be fair to you.' That was to say that, being an aspiring top-line reporter and a famous, higher ranking officer in the Alliance Military, they had non-compatible lives.

_No cry and no foul_, thought Shepard approaching the desk now that the officer in line ahead of her had been cleared through. _Though I'm sorry we couldn't have spent more time together just for the hell of it – she's incredibly flexible_.

She suppressed a wide grin at that thought as the desk clerk, a redheaded young man staring intently at the computer screen in front of him, pointed at the access terminal on the serving side of the desk. "Plug your info in there to confirm ID and clearance. If anything is amiss with your file, you will be kicked out of this room by my friends here." He jutted his thumb at the security officers standing behind him, still looking at the screen. "So, if you aren't sure if this is the dock you're supposed to be at then I suggest you go get out and check your information packet for docking registration or go pester someone else."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at his attitude. "A little curt for a docking procedure, Corporal," she commented diplomatically. "Have there been problems with security?" She activated her omni-tool and pressed it against the screen for transfer.

The corporal bristled visibly, still not looking up from the screen even though her name, rank, boarding authorization and security clearance was flashing on the screen waiting for his acknowledgment. "My day's events are none of your business," growled the clerk.

Shepard's anger flared. _Damnit,_ she thought, jaw taunt now_, am I really going to have to do this?_ She dropped her duffle loudly onto the floor below. The redheaded clerk jumped when the bag and its contents hit the floor and he looked up in irritation only to recognize her in a face of pure horror. Or it could have been awe, Serrica could never really tell with a long face like his. "Corporal, I wasn't asking about your day. I was asking about the security of ship beyond that elevator, so it _is_ my business. I'm going to be XO as soon as I leave this room and report to the _Normandy_'s captain," she said icily. "So how about you stow that attitude somewhere that doesn't put you in my direct line of fire and do your job as is required of you in this position instead of being an insubordinate little shit who's wasting my time."

It was not a question and the clerk was very aware of it and snapped to attention behind the desk. "Lieutenant – I mean, Commander – I mean, Lieutenant Commander Shepard – I mean, ma'am," he stammered. "Yes, ma'am."

Shepard crossed her arms. "Well?" she asked leaning back and eyes narrowing. "Have there been problems with security?"

"A few lost soldiers, ma'am – nothing of note and their credentials all checked out. They were told to go to back out and check their docking info."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "So, you're a jackass as well as a little shit," she replied bluntly. "It would have taken you two seconds to re-direct them to their proper docking port, but instead you pulled this high security position rank on them and told them to fuck off."

The Corporal bristled again, this time he thought before responding though. _At least that's an improvement,_ Shepard thought with a small amount of relief.

"Security procedure is very clear on the conduct of any personnel without proper security clearance in a restricted area, ma'am. I am well within my rights to tell those soldiers to 'fuck off' as you so eloquently put it." There was a smile at the corner of his mouth, though he remained rigid at attention.

_Or not_. Serrica's eyes became slits._ Wow, kid: bad choice_. "Corporal," Serrica said, her voice harsh, low and bordering on dangerous. "This is _not _a restricted area. This is the _boarding_ area that will eventually lead into a restricted area. The restricted area commences when I get in that elevator, where I would be subject to immediate detainment in a large, easily secured metal box if my credentials didn't check out through scanning." Her voiced changed to a condescending tone that she reserved for recruits or soldiers on charge parade. "When it opens it's doors in the docking area, I will be subjected to a second layer of security checks – far more advanced than your little screen popping up 'green' for good and 'red' for bad or the low-intensity scanning in the elevator. _Then_, if I pass that, Alliance Security Officials will pat me down while all of my kit will be searched. After that, I will go through a fourth security check through a Sensory-grid at the ramp before boarding the ship and a fifth time when I sign in to the VI systems as a member of the crew," she explained thoroughly and as simply as she could. She then leant of the desk of the clerk, her gaze unyielding and scorching. "You are authorized to say: 'No, you aren't cleared to get into the elevator'. Beyond that, you are required to service them as any other boarding clerk on this station. That is the regulation on this station, Corporal, not my personal opinion. You are obligated by your position to give any person who approaches this desk the proper docking number and the directions to it if they ask, but I'm willing to bet you went and threatened to arrest them if they didn't leave this room immediately, hmm?"

The shocked look on his face and the bead of sweat that rolled down his neck told her everything she needed to know. She chanced a glance at the two guards behind him and found that they were grinning at her. It was clear that no other officer had called the clerk on his bullshit until now, Rica realized with disgust, and the guards wouldn't have been able to do anything about it someone above their pay-grade did so.

Serrica squared her shoulders and made note of the corporal's nametag. "So, you've been shirking your duties and flaunting authorization you don't have in addition to being just a plain jackass. I want the name and rank of your reporting officer. _Now_, Corporal," she ordered icily, activating her onmi-tool without taking her eyes off the man.

The clerk almost went white and his spine solidified so that he immediately fell into the position of attention. One of the two guards had to hold back a snicker at the sight while the other simply watched with as much neutrality as he could possibly muster. "M-Ma'am," replied the clerk, unsteadily. "2nd Lieutenant Shakarchi with Boarding Authority, ma'am. Sergeant Field from the 2 Section is in direct charge of me, ma'am," he replied in horror.

She finally looked at her onmi-tool and made a note in her mailing lists. "Nice going," she complemented sarcastically. "Both will be hearing from me," she said, turning off her tool and picking up her duffle.

She pointed at the two security guards with her free hand. "You two," she indicated severely as they too snapped to attention. "You will make sure this man is no longer a jackass while my message goes through," she ordered carefully looking them both in the eyes. "Is that clear?"

"Yes, Commander," replied the older of the two guards. His younger counterpart repeated the phase to her a moment later.

Shepard nodded to them and gave the clerk one last hard glance. "Thank you for your time, gentlemen. Good day." Then she moved off towards the elevator, pretending to check something on her omni-tool as she made it to the doors. The officer who had been in line before her walked into the elevator with her and the doors closed with the two of them inside.

Serrica only closed her omni-tool when the elevator started moving with a jerk. It wasn't until the elevator got to the bottom of the shaft and was subjected to the security scanning that Shepard had mentioned that she noticed the male officer in the elevator with her was observing her intently. Her hard emerald eyes darted to the side and caught the lieutenant's careful gaze.

"I've heard stories about you, Commander Shepard," said the lieutenant in a calm, yet rough voice. He was relaxed despite being caught in Shepard's formidable gaze and leaning against the far corner with his arms crossed.

Serrica looked at the officer who'd boarded with her in this metal box and schooled her features into stone. "Oh," she replied, non-committal. "And what do you think of them now that you've met me?"

The officer raised his thick brown eyebrows a little. "You're not going to ask what the stories are about? Just what I think of them now?" he asked, light auburn eyes curious.

Shepard's head titled to the side slightly. "I though that was obvious," she said after a few moments. "I don't really care about stories tell people. I care about what they think when they meet me."

The officer paused, a small, bright smile appearing across his mouth. "I think most of the stories don't do you justice," he replied honestly. "I think that if most other officers of your rank found out that clerk had been making other soldiers miserable, they'd have walked on – it wouldn't have been their business. Instead, I just saw a senior officer stand up for some soldiers she didn't even know and it humbles me a little since I didn't think to find out what he was doing and try to correct it myself." He looked at the documentary still playing on the ANN feed in the elevator. "Though I admit, I was a little distracted," he added sadly.

Shepard frowned, her eyebrows coming together in a tight space to stare at the officer in an Alliance working uniform in the corner. "That was… a lot more direct and far more complimentary than I was expecting, Lieutenant." She said, taken aback. "Are you always so forward?"

His smile widened. "Not always, but often enough if I respect the person I'm talking to."

Her brow relaxed, but she kept her face neutral. "I can appreciate that." She read the nametag across his right chest and added: "Lieutenant Alenko."

Alenko nodded to her and picked up his two bags when the elevator chimed that it's scanning was complete.

"I didn't know you had been assigned to the Normandy," he stated, getting out of the elevator and into the large hangar bay with Shepard.

Serrica laughed out loud at that. "Neither did I – at least not before a few days ago."

The lieutenant seemed surprised. "How is that, ma'am? If you don't mind me asking."

Shepard shrugged. "I don't mind." She nodded towards the dock. "Maybe there's someone here who can tell me."

He nodded. "I'll bet Captain Anderson can shed some light on that," he said, contemplative. "I haven't met him yet, but a good friend from my basic who worked with him during some of the teaching he's done for Grissom Academy says that he is, above all things, incredibly honest and straightforward, and one of the most outstanding officers she's ever met."

Shepard eyes went slightly wide. "Captain Anderson? Captain _David_ Anderson?" she repeated not believing what she was hearing. "The first N program graduate? The guy who got enough commendations in his career to head the Alliance Military if he wanted to? The hero of New Roma? The man that levelled the batarian death squads that tried to take the Peltri Colony? The guy who has more medals than I have swearwords in my vocabulary? _That_ Captain Anderson?"

Alenko nodded, though he seemed taken aback by the way Shepard had reacted. "Yes, ma'am," was all he could say. "You weren't told? He's supposed to be in command of the _Normandy_ – though I heard there was some trouble with the politics of the matter. Doubt that will last though."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "Of course, I wasn't told," she complained as they exited the elevator.

A squad of soldiers met them outside the elevator doors as well as a few docking area personnel. One of the docking area pers. motioned for Shepard's bad as she and Alenko walked towards the security checkpoint and she let him take the bag. He struggled when he took and nearly dropped it. He clearly was not expecting it to be so heavy as he brought it to be scanned by practically dragging it to the checkpoint as his colleagues searched both officers.

"I'm not sure what to say to that ma'am," confessed Alenko, as the soldiers completed their search on him.

"You shouldn't," she sighed wistfully. "Though I'd be grateful for any other info passed whether or not this is more than a maiden voyage?" She glanced at him hopefully.

But Alenko shook his head. "Sorry, ma'am," he said regretfully. "All I was ordered to do was show up and be co-pilot for the new ship." He nodded towards the doors leading to the ship's docking neck. "My position file got me full access to the ship's schematics, but not much else."

Shepard took her bag from the rolling scanner and walked towards the door where Alenko was waiting to go through with her. "I guess it was too much to ask for," she started, disheartened. "I just wish I – Holy mother of mercy!" She breathed, seeing the ship on the other side of the viewport after the doors swished open.

The frigate was idling in space dock around a few other Alliance cruisers and one dreadnaught. Her colours were strange compared to the rest of the Alliance ships since She was black and white instead of blue and white, but her design stood out more than her colour scheme. The frigate had a small, cylindrical Alliance shape to her body, but her engines were attached to four distinct wings that Serrica had only seen on turian ships before now. She also didn't have a main gun – or it was so small and barely visible that it could barely have been called a main gun – but the long, sleek and unique design from bow to stern made up for everything else.

"That is one _sexy_ lady of a ship." Shepard could not pry her eyes away from the ship's form and features.

"Finally," said a voice that made both Alenko and Shepard look back in surprise – neither had heard anyone approach. "Someone else who'll drool as much as I did when I first saw her. Though I'll admit that I'm a little jealous of the way you're looking at her, Commander."

Both Shepard and Alenko promptly snapped to attention.

As the senior officer between she and Alenko, Serrica saluted. "Captain Anderson, sir," she greeted.

Anderson quickly saluted her back and threw out his open hand after the commander relaxed. "Good to finally meet you, Shepard."

The captain's hand was well calloused, Rica realized with approval, and she could feel that he had a few scars on it. "Likewise, sir."

Anderson turned to Alenko. "And you too, Lieutenant Alenko." He offered the same hand and Alenko took it graciously. "You come highly recommended from the Captain Neya."

"Thank you, sir." Alenko was incredibly reserved. "I'm glad I made a good enough impression to get on your watch."

Anderson laughed. "I'm sure it came as a bit of a surprise, but I've got good instincts, Lieutenant. I think you'll do very well as part of my crew." He opened his omni-tool and glanced at something on his screens. He sighed as if cursed. "I'm sorry to cut this short, but we're on a tight schedule as of this morning. Navigator Pressly is waiting for you on the Command Deck of the Normandy, Alenko. He'll brief you on what's going on up there on the bridge."

Alenko saluted. "On my way, sir." He left the two soldiers in a hurry.

"Shepard, you're with me for the next hour or so. I expect you have questions, but in order to answer at least a few of them, we'll have to speak in private," he explained, walking briskly in the direction of the docking neck doors, but not running. "That might not be until we leave dry dock, however."

Serrica nodded as she fell in step beside him. "I can understand that, sir. Though I do have a hell of a lot of questions."

The captain nodded, turning into the long docking neck. "I appreciate your patience and, as I said, we'll talk as soon as I can. Until then, however, I need you to do the regular duties of an XO – that means getting to know the ship and her crew." He motioned through the transparent glass of the docking neck at his ship.

Shepard nodded. "Do you have a roster I can reference, sir?" she asked, brining up her omni-tool.

Anderson smiled at her while activating his tool and selecting a file transfer app. "Right to work despite the bullshit then, XO? I knew I'd like you, Shepard." He forwarded the selected file, sliding his finger across the holographic projection and flicking the icon towards Shepard in real time. "One hundred and eighteen personnel in total – all hand-picked by myself and Admiral Hackett. I've sent you the ship's schematics as well. I've heard you're good with engines, Commander?"

Shepard grinned, balancing her duffle on one shoulder so she could use her free hand to open the dossier. "I've dabbled in drive core designs, sir – even before I joined the Alliance." She selected the schematics and whistled at the first glance. "And it looks like this Madame's engines will dazzle me for a while." She looked up at the captain. "She's a turian-human co-op build, right? I could tell from the engine position alone, but she looks distinctly Alliance in a lot of ways."

Anderson stopped at the sliding door entrance to the ship and waved his omni-tool over the entrance keys to the airlock. "That she is. Fast and quiet and built for deep scouting missions with a stealth-drive core that makes me wonder why we didn't collaborate with the turians sooner."

Shepard tilted her head to the side as Anderson's key-code opened the door in front of them with a snap-hiss. "Most First Contact War vets would disagree," he commented guardedly.

But Anderson laughed. "They would." He motioned for her to enter the airlock and decontamination chamber and followed her in. "But the war's long over. We're all just soldiers now – humans and turians alike. Plus, the Turian Hierarchy has been more than accommodating."

"_Stand by Captain Anderson and Lieutenant Commander Shepard_," chimed the Normandy's female virtual intelligence. "_Decontamination in progress_."

Anderson pointed upward as a bright blue sensory beam passed over both officers. "Even the VI was developed by both turians and humans. She has two names: Juno for humans and Ans'eel for turians – though I doubt I'm pronouncing that last one right."

Shepard raised an eyebrow looked up towards the chamber. "Juno," she ordered. "Please state your turian name in Hierarchy – basic dialect."

"Certainly, Commander Shepard." The VI said a word that sounded like a moan and a rough, horking noise at two differing tones. Anderson didn't understand a thing, but Shepard nodded.

"I thought so." She nodded before turning to the captain to notice that he was looking at her expectantly. "It means 'Shadowtread'," she explained. "It's one of the traditional turian Spirit names they give to warrior groups that don't wish to be seen. We share a Spirit name with their deep-scout special forces units used be the Hierarchy in high-risk missions."

Anderson scratched his head. "I didn't get a translation of that. Can you understand turian dialects without a translator?" he asked, more than a little impressed.

But Shepard shook her head. "No, sir. I just have one of the best translators credits can buy." She pointed at the side of her head towards where she had the translator implanted. "As a result, I can understand all of the council race languages and each language's dialects. Even some of the older ones – like the meaning of the turian spirit-names."

Anderson frowned. "How important are these names culturally? I wasn't aware that they even had spirit-names for ships. Last thing I need to insult any of the turians who helped built this ship." _Or the one that's already on it_, he thought, _I wonder if Nihlus already knew_. He looked up at where the security feed for the airlock was centred as if to stare through it. _I wonder if he's watching this right now._

"All turian ships have a traditional spirit-name to call upon in times of need." Shepard let her hand fall to the sides of the chamber and brushed her fingers against the bulkhead gently. "I'm surprised the turians let the VI have the name – usually it's something the ship-captains share personally with the crew upon arrival." She grinned back at Anderson. "Which, I guess you just did." She shrugged. "I wouldn't worry too much about it, sir. Most turians will either be too professional or too polite to say anything about it." She smiled at the bulkhead. "It's just a tradition that's supposed to bring good fortune and faith to our endeavours. A nice gesture – especially considering the First Contact War. They must really want this to work."

"I'll take your word on it, Commander." The door to the Normandy swung open to reveal the command deck with the bridge and cockpit at its bow. "And I'm happy to take any blessing for the new girl, though I suspect she'll pull her weight regardless." He stopped at the threshold and smiled back at Shepard. "Shall I introduce you two properly?"

Shepard grinned widely and walked onto the ship's brightly lit bridge. "I would love that, sir."

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_Oh, Normandy. I've missed you sooooo much. _

_Has anyone ever had to go through a list of adverbs to figure out how their character meant to say or do something? It's refreshing and fun to poke around the English language. It's like a high-explosive solution when you hit a writer' wall the size of Nebraska too, which is nice._

_For those of you who are wondering: Yes, I have added nametags to everyone's uniform in Mass Effect. I don't know how anyone would figure out who anyone was otherwise – you can't have you're omni-tool open the whole damn time._

_I can't help but think that Serrica should have an instant attraction to the Normandy. She's a special kind of a ship for a special kind of gal. Happy B-day, Shepard!_

_I'm of two minds about Anderson as a character. On one side, I think he has a good command savvy from the evidence put forward in the game, but he has a reliance on blind faith that astounds me and I think it's a weakness when he has to deal with someone or a group of people who deal in facts rather than gut feeling. Not sure if I explained that properly, but I'm sure I'll figure out how to make it clearer in coming chapters._

_Chapter 6 and 7 need a refit. BB in a bit._


	6. Chapter 6: Beacon of Humanity

_So, for those of you who are wondering what I've changed in the last few chapters, here's a list:_

_- Clarified that Shepard has a degree in something that made her study television shows from our time (specifically, you will find out that it's more of a 2000 to 2030 kind of deal with me referencing shows that do and don't exist... should be fun, even if it does spontaneously combust)_

_- Fixed A LOT of typos and grammatical errors (most of them disinfected via sunlight by N.Q. Wilder)._

_- Made stuff shorter (cept for that one chapter where Shepard wakes up... still working on that one)_

_- Little stuff like having Shepard wake Delssandro up completely before moving her, little comments of how people are moving._

_Read them through if you really want to know everything._

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_Chapter 6: Beacon of Humanity _

Serrica was a tolerant woman when it came to other races – especially the council races since the extranet had the most amount of information on their culture and society so it was easier to understand where they were coming from in terms of opinions. Not that her tolerance didn't extend to the other races as well. Even the species everyone assumed she hated, such as the batarians or the krogan, Shepard held their traditions and habits in moderate regard.

That tolerance, however, did not extend to be watched like a mouse by the most eerily stealthy turian she had ever encountered in her brief existence in the galaxy.

Nihlus Kriyk was getting on her nerves. So much so that she elected to ignore the spectre completely in the hallways if she knew he was in one and wanting to punch him every time he managed to surprise her by suddenly appearing beside or behind her to talk.

That last part concerned her more than anything else about him. It took a _lot_ to surprise her in terms of stealth. In the N program, she'd aced the stealth recon and individual infiltration tests to the point where no one had been able to break her records since she graduated, but even she was wondering how the hell Nihlus was able to show up every time she turned around. He was doing so well pretending to be his appointed title that she wondered if he was, in fact, part ethereal.

The effect was in no way softened by the mundane things he asked her about after the surprising the hell out of her every few hours. Why would a turian spectre be so damn interested in her opinion on the public politics of human government? Why ask her about things like the lack of reparations for older biotic implants, or about the use of nuclear weapons on Earth before the finding of the Prothean Achieves on Mars? Worse yet, why did he ask her random, unimportant personal questions like: Why she joined the Alliance? Or why she had an education in something that wasn't really relevant to her military career? What was her favorite part of N7 training? She felt like an overly friendly schizophrenic reporter was interviewing her half the time they were talking. His questions were always direct and it always seemed like the conversation and discussion that ensued afterward was unfinished since he would disappear as quickly as he would appear.

Realizing that her jaw had been clenched at the thought of the spectre following her around just to start conversations that never ended, Serrica ordered herself to relax and moved to do the next position in the set of strength poses she was currently doing in a small corner of the cargo hold. The deck chief had been authorized to set out mats, sparing gloves and pads, and weight equipment for late night and early morning workouts and Serrica had found a couple of hours in the late night shift after most of the crew was asleep to do her own routines without interruption.

Well, _almost_ without interruption.

She'd had a visit from Nihlus twice before tonight while she was doing physical training and both times she'd had to excuse herself before completing her workout in order to keep him from questioning her further.

She took a breath and tried to clear her mind of thoughts, but couldn't help but feel the frustration of not knowing spectre Kriyk's endgame. Even Alenko, the most patient and thoughtful man she'd met in her career to date and good poker player at that, was starting to avoid her due to how foul her mood became after she encountered Nihlus.

But perhaps it wasn't really the turian that was bothering her. If she was truly honest with herself, her most jarring thoughts concerned discovering the _Normandy_'s true mission outside it's shakedown run: A prothean beacon.

They were going to a human colony near the Terminus System that had dug up a _prothean beacon_. The _Normandy_ was going to fetch it for the galaxy to study. She still couldn't believe it: a_ fucking **prothean beacon**_. Anderson had confirmed it with her twice now, and asking him to tell again would just feel daft.

Ever since humans had discovered the technological remains of the ancient race that had once reigned over the galaxy on Mars, humans had leapt forward in technological ingenuity by about hundred years and had joined the rest of the galactic community. The same could be said for most, if not all species. Practically every piece of modern technology was based off of prothean designs, so having a high-ranking member from the Citadel Council's Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch to oversee the acquisition of a prothean beacon wasn't odd. It still didn't explain why the Alliance had seen fit to promote her as high up the rank structure as she now sat and it didn't explain Nihlus' obvious interest in her, but it was enough to keep her going without demanding the captain explain more about her situation. He kept insisting that he'd tell her when he was able, but she –

"I do not find it surprising that you are proficient in this form of physical fitness, Commander."

_Mother fucking goddess Athame's holy voluptuous tits! _Shepard nearly fell over from the stance she was in when hearing how close that turian voice was, but steeled her muscles to stay as they were for a few seconds longer. _How the bloody, whoring hell did he get that close without me noticing? He's a foot taller than me and a lot heavier too!_ Nihlus was leaning up against the wall of the corner she had occupied, but she had no clue when he'd gotten there. She'd been on the ship almost a week now and she'd only ever seen him wear the custom made black combat armour around the ship. Today, he had donned the black and blue turian military uniform, though he looked slightly uncomfortable in it – more rigid, which was saying something since turian always looked so damn uptight in Serrica's opinion.

Ignoring her sudden flinch at realizing he was present in her comfort zone, Nihlus continued speaking. "Turians have a similar collection of poses with no shortage of strength 'pillars' such as the ones you've been using."

Shepard moved her torso so that her chest was square to her front foot. "I'm aware," she replied with effort as she moved lower. "I've seen a few of them in vids and manuals, Spectre Kriyk." She doubled slowly over and moved into a plank position and would stay there for a few minutes depending on how her lower back felt today. "Wouldn't say that I'd try any of the higher forms because turians bend in a different way than humans, but I'm familiar with some of the lesser forms."

There was silence then and Shepard tried to remove the image of Nihlus' eerie green eyes staring at her from her mind and instead focused her from in the varying types of plank.

When she recovered from the last one-handed plank position and started doing balance postures, she gave him a quick glance. "Do you need something, Spectre Kriyk?" she inquired as politely as she could.

"Your opinion on a matter regarding human culture and thought, if I might be so bold yet again?" He was more polite than she was and had smoother mannerisms. She had always considered herself good at formal speech, but he was _great_ at it, but his skill unnerved her a little even though she was impressed by it.

Rica sighed, but she settled on a discreet smile after switching to the next pose. "As you've no doubt heard me say before, I'm no expert on human culture and thought," she warned him again. "But, as always, I'll answer to the best of my ability."

"And I am grateful for your input." He crossed his arms and settled back against the wall, watching her intently again. "I am wondering: what do you know this world we're going to, Commander?"

"Eden Prime? It's a pretty colony for the most part. One of humanity's oldest if I remember right. A little industry here and there, some farming, and it's got some impressive dig sites for prothean relics – practically no polution." She switched legs to balance on with a little grunt. "I assume you also want to know my opinion on the place? I've never seen it, but they say it's a paradise to live there." She looked at the turian dubiously. "I have my doubts about that: no-where's perfect, but the place is one of the bigger, most successful, and safer colonies in the Attican Traverse, so people like it a lot."

Nihlus nodded, noncommittal. "Some say it was very bold of humans to settle so close to the Terminus Systems – the amount of raiding parties sent out every standard month alone is staggering," he commented, obviously wanting her to add some remark.

But Shepard shrugged. "It's not my place to say," she replied, balancing on the other foot again, but this time holding up a straight leg with one hand under her knee. "It's not an independent colony, so the Alliance gives it all year rotation ground protection and it's on the patrol of three different peace-keeping cruisers in case anything goes wrong. Plus, the Attican Transverse in under Citadel protection under the Attican Act of 2146, so unless the Terminus Systems want to trigger a war, they better lay off."

She switched legs again as Nihlus' mandibles twitched a little. "True enough, but if you know what I know than you it is all together possible that the Terminus Systems might very well start a war over what on Eden Prime at the moment."

Serrica rolled her eyes. "Scuttlebutt already says that everyone knows we're going to do a covert pick-up, Spectre Kriyk," she mentioned raising her other leg. "But you already knew that, so I'm not going to mention it further and just play along. As to your concerns about 'It', we're keeping this discovery as low-key as we can, but it's going to eventually get out that something big was found on Eden Prime. So, yes, I can see how Eden Prime will be vulnerable and prime target if somebody in the Attican or Terminus is stupid enough to try, but after we get that thing off-planet, I think it and Eden Prime will do just fine."

Nihlus' face was unreadable, through he lowered his chin a little to look down at her. "All advanced galactic civilization is based on prothean technology. Without the mass relays they built, interstellar travel would be next to impossible. The Citadel is a marvel of technology on its own and it is the seat of galactic power from the economy to every government. Even the drive cores we use to reach the relays are based off prothean design."

Shepard bristled again, but saw his point. "I get it: Once Eden Prime's discovery is known, even the batarians might try getting back into the fray for any and all other goodies the planet's prothean ruins might find next. But right now, our current objective is under wraps." She risked a glance at him and nodded despite not seeing any reaction on his turian features. "So, as I said, Eden Prime is under both Alliance and Citadel protection. It will be fine – even after we leave with the package."

"I think I understand your position on the matter, Commander. Still, Eden Prime has become a steady symbol for your people. It's proof that humanity can not only establish colonies across space, but also protect them. But the reality of the matter is that humans are still newcomers, the galaxy can be a very dangerous place, and it wouldn't be the first Alliance colony to claim safety and still fall to poor strategic planning in terms of defence and likelihood of attack. So how safe is it really?"

That question made Serrica freeze. _That's it_, she thought with a sneer and fell out of her position briskly before turning to glare wholeheartedly at the turian. "Stop poking and prodding and start speaking plainly, Kriyk. Where are you going with this and why?" she demanded flatly.

The mandibles twitched out and down briefly as if the turian had taken a breath, and Nihlus uncrossed his arms. "Where do you think I'm going with it, Commander?" It was direct and in no way innocent, but there was no menace behind question.

Rica's jaw clenched up again – enough to cause a soft click that only she could hear clearly enough to cause her worry about the muscles straining there – and she walked up to the turian. Her eyes regarded him coolly, her stance became firm, and she was ready for a fight – verbal or otherwise. "Mindoir or Elysium," she replied tersely. "Most likely Mindoir, since you've taken so much interest in my personal life, judging from the way I keep running into you, answering all of your nosy questions, and all that data you've collected from my private journal since hacking my personal files three days ago."

The turian looked surprised, mandibles twitching once before settling back into Nihlus' cold, collected state, but Shepard rolled her eyes at his expression. "Don't act like you don't know that I've been keeping tabs on you too," she warned. "I'm smarter than I look and I've had a few friends who've taught me how to trace information better than some comm specialists. You're a spectre, so by definition, you can't be an idiot, or the Council wouldn't be able to dig itself out of the shit it inevitably gets into. So, what's the deal?" Her gaze was harder than she wanted it to be, but Nihlus had pushed her too far – now she was pushing back. "Why so intrusively curious about me? Why are you so intent on pushing all of my buttons every time you hunt me down on the ship and sneak up on me? Why would a spectre want to get into my life so completely?"

Again, the turian's mandibles twitched. They were the only part of him moving at the moment and Shepard wondered if he was even breathing.

They were at a standoff for at least a minute after that. Some of the deck-crew working the night shift had stopped to stare at them, wondering if they should call it in, when Nihlus moved to put his right talon out for her to shake and what might pass for a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

She stared down at the talon in confusion and then looked back up at him with the same face.

"For finally confronting me," he clarified, turning his outstretched talon into a wave as part of a formal bow. "I've never met anyone like you, Commander." He confessed, more emotion coming into his voice than she had heard in any of the their previous conversations. "You're 'a little rough around the edges' – as your kind might say – and I don't begrudge you for that, considering what you've been through. In spite of that, I don't doubt that your strength of spirit, or your skills will make you better than even I."

Serrica blinked in surprise, but the confused frown remained. "Better than you at what?"

"At being a council spectre, of course, or has that scenario not crossed your mind every time we've talked in the last few days?"

Rica suddenly felt numb and her jaw dropped into a look that must have been similar to abject horror. _Oh, shit – did he just? – Holy shit, he just did._

"Fuck," she said, shoulders dropping, closing her eyes, and running her hand across her face. Then a thought occurred to her that made her heart hurt. "That's why they've promoted me," she said, regret lined every inch of her voice. "You told them you were going to ask me and the Alliance jumped at the chance for a fallen golden-gal to be reaffirmed in a circle of excellence."

The turian nodded and Rica instantly felt sick to her stomach.

Who else had been in on this shit? Anderson? Probably – she knew he'd been hiding something big every time they spoke, but the captain always found a way to deflect her whenever she'd tried to find out what it was. Her promotion was done through Alliance government channels and the embassy on the Citadel, so that meant at least Councillor Udina and President Nitupel must have known. Who else? The fleet admirals maybe? Hackett? Dumel? Katsukova? How many of them had endorsed this appointment for the sake of the Alliance's image?

Everything fell into place and all Shepard could think about was how this was such a _terrible_ idea.

"You think you aren't suited," stated the turian, knowing that this would be the commander's most likely reaction and knowing that showing concern would be the best way to go about it.

Shepard's eyes snapped open. "Fuck, yes! I'd be a terrible spectre!" she admitted freely and emphasizing the sentence with a violent movement of her hand in front of Nihlus' face. Shepard had not felt this kind of apprehensive, horrified knot in her chest since taking charge during the raid on Elysium.

"I beg to differ." The spectre pushed off from against the wall and began pacing back and forth just outside the gym-mat section Shepard had been using for her PT session. "As I've made clear, you're a very unique human, Commander. Stern, yet gentle; curt, but caring; level-headed, but so utterly unpredictable and creative that no one would see you coming if that was what was needed – as it was on Torfan and also, I suspect, on Elysium. You are everything I expected of you and more." His luminescent green eyes held her hard green ones for a moment as she prepared to offer up her personal criticisms and failings, but before she could do so, he continued, "I know the intimate details of events that transpired on Elysium, Akuze, and Torfan, Shepard," he stated to her further horror. "I also know of your past on Mindoir and what the batarians truly took from you when the colony fell. I know of your counselling after the attack from as many as ten different sources. I know of the time you spent with your mother, the time you spent to ensure being in the absence of your mother because of what you experienced with her, and your interests in all mechanical constructions as a coping mechanism for the time you spent with her. I know of your education in a field completely, but somehow not completely, outside your interests. I know of your training with the Alliance on all courses and the home you have found in their Charter, the extended family of soldiers they provide for you, and the laws they wish to abide and use to protect others. I know of your friends, Shepard – your closest and your furthest – from all walks of life." He looked back at her and stopped pacing. "And all of these things have shone me that you are the best humanity has to offer. I don't care what you think about yourself after the facts. You are the best, whether you wanted it to be so or not." His voice became grave. "I have seen many possible candidates come and go. I have never met someone who could not only surpass me, but also surpass most soldiers and leaders of this age – nor did I truly believe that I would. And yet, here you stand."

He paused for a moment, giving her a chance to reply to his statements. When nothing came, he continued: "I offer a chance to fulfil a part of dream that drives you, Commander: to protect, serve and insure justice and security. Without special permission and appointment from the Citadel Council, I cannot formerly accept you into the Spectres Branch, but I can guarantee sponsorship and therefore guarantee that within the next year, you'll be a full member. Eden Prime would be the first of several missions together and I will teach you everything you need to know outside your current skill set." He couldn't keep from smiling at her potential. "Which, granted, isn't much, Commander, and mostly consists of formalities and tricks of the trade."

He studied her face that now no longer in pain, but still on the edge. "So, Commander, you have a choice to make." He walked back to her. "Will you accept my offer of sponsorship?"

Shepard physically recoiled at the question as if she'd been struck. She did not speak for a few minutes at least and simply stared at the turian at the end of her countdown.

"No," she said simply after a long silence.

()()()()()()()()()

_Poor Nihlus. We'll see how he deals with this._

_Doing the final touches on 7 and 8 now. 8 has a lot of action in it and I'm having some balance issues, but it will get sorted out soon._

_Thanks for reading!_


	7. Chapter 7: Castle of Glass

_Chapter 7: Castle of Glass_

Nihlus blinked quite a few times at her before daring to speak. "I beg your pardon, Commander?" Was is Shepard's imagination, or did _both _of his voices just crack at different intervals of that question?

"I said 'no', Spectre Kriyk," she repeated clearly, crossing her arms and leaning back on her back leg to solidify her stance on the matter. "I do not wish to join the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel Council. I want nothing to do with your sponsorship."

"Commander," he pleaded, his voice was even, but a tiny mark of desperation entered his tone as he continued. "Commander, you must reconsider. The galaxy needs you – "

"And the only way I could make a difference would be becoming a council spectre?" She returned, her tone unbelieving and bordering on disgust. "I was paying attention your speech, sir. You think I'm amazing. That I'll change the face of humanity and the galaxy or some such nonsense."

"It _isn't_ nonsense, Commander." This time his voice did crack. "And I don't think you were listening correctly –"

"My dream isn't to 'protect, serve, and insure justice and security'," she cut him off before he could get going again. "It that's what it was, I'd have never ended up on Akuze in the first place, but of course, you weren't able to figure that one out." She shook her head at the memory and sighed. _At least __**that**__ is still a secret_, she couldn't help but think in relief. "Also." Her voice was gruff and deadpan now. "I don't care what you think you know of my mother. I may not have forgiven her yet – I may never forgive her – but I know _why_ she is the way she is. Armed with the multiple factors of that ultimate truth, nothing anyone concludes about her is valid unless they have seen it through my eyes and since nobody seems to see it my way…" She shrugged, letting the turian connect the dots for himself.

She was sick of it all. Sick of the ridiculous expectations; sick of the absence of using _fucking_ brains when it came to studying her personal life; sick of the glorifying image that came from that stupidity; but most of all, she was sick of being treated like there was only one choice every time there was a fork in the road.

She hadn't said anything when her mother had told her she should be in the Alliance. When her section commander on her basic combat course had said he'd be able to use her 'aggression' to good use and had made her into an N program candidate, she hadn't said anything. Thinking about it, she had never made a choice in her career so far that hadn't been to advance someone else's endeavours.

No more. She would not be a spectre. No more choices made out of someone else's desperation. No more half measures or decisions made with enough emotion to level a turian battlecruiser. No more crap. She was done with being the 'her' everyone gawked at or hoped for when nothing else was working out for them.

_What about becoming something better than 'her'?_ nagged a voice in the back of her head. _What if becoming a spectre does just that? You've always hated stagnation. Why not do something different –_

_Shut up! That ship has sailed. And there's no point in chasing when I can't even tread water properly._

Presently, Nihlus paced in front of her. His mandibles were taunt against his face and he looked like he was huffing as he walked.

He only stopped when he finally took a deep, long breath. He stared at her afterward and Shepard could see just a tiny, little glimpse of desperation in his eyes.

She hadn't moved and her expression had not changed. He had not expected this reaction: yet an other lesson of its kind in his line of work that never ceased to make itself known, though he was usually much better at coping with it.

"Are you sure about your answer, Commander?" he pleaded, wary of just how defensive she had become. He'd cornered her, he realized with regret, and she was now what most people never expected her to be: sacred. He hadn't done enough research, obviously, and had somehow unwittingly hit a particularly volatile cord with precision. He would retrace his steps and try again at a different time, of course, but maybe he could get a few more clues out of this conversation as to how to proceed the next time around.

She got out of her stance and rigidly fetched her water bottle and towel before leaving the mat. "Positive, Kriyk," she muttered, heading towards the turbo-lift without looking back at him. "Don't hold up for me to change my mind – I can almost feel you looking for a way to do just that, so stop it."

_So much for clues_, thought the spectre with a quiet huff, watching her leave with interest, but not stopping her.

Shepard made it to the lift without turning around. It was empty as she entered and she waited until the door closed before leaning against the cold metal wall in disdain. The lift ascended for what seemed like an eternity for only a few meters.

_Tits_, did she ever need a drink right now. Fortunately, she'd stowed away some whiskey in her personal effects just for such an occasion. She only hopped she had enough to deal with this shit.

Back in the cargo bay, Nihlus ignored the technician who went passed him looking at the turian as if he were insane. He had still not moved from where she had left him and he stared at the doors to the lift in her wake.

* * *

Serrica woke up to the feeling of a strong hand against her shoulder and nearly punched it's owner as a reflex. But then she registered where she was from the pictures of her friends on the underside of the bunk above her and tried to control herself.

She groaned. _Mercy, curses, and damnation…_ Had she finished all the whiskey she had brought in her bag?

She leaned over and checked the inside of her duffle and found two previously full emergency bottles empty.

_Well, that sucks the big krogan quad_, she thought to herself. _Now I have nothing_. This was going to be _hell_ for everyone around her for the next day until they got to Eden Prime and she restocked her stash.

She threw her legs over her bunk to sit up, took her head in her hands, and rubbed her eyes while trying not to puke – if only to keep the floor clean for her roommate.

"Ma'am, we're hitting the Charon relay in about forty minutes. Captain Anderson wants you up at the bridge before that," the voice that brought her out of her daze was sympathetic and kinder than she expected and she jerked her head up in surprise.

"Pressly," she remembered, eyes squinting and head cocking to the side at him.

"Ma'am." The middle-aged navigator nodded like an officer does to his respected senior and not as if he had just shaken her out of a hangover coma. He was balding and there were visible bags under his eyes from fatigue or maybe age, but he had a dark-haired, neatly trimmed beard that curtained his chin. His face seemed to always looked like he was in a permanent frown and that didn't changed as he went to Shepard's locker, opened it, and looked for her work uniform. "We need to get you to the bridge."

She sighed. "HUA*, Pressly. I'm up." She got to her feet and went to their tiny, narrow toiletry room for a few moments to dig out her xelminal. "When was your shift over last night?" she asked from in front of the mirror. She winced at how terrible the bags under her eyes made her look and drew some water from the revolving sink to wake her up a little. Then she stopped, tilting her head and thinking back. "More importantly, when the hell was mine supposed to start?"

"Mine ended after you'd finished the first bottle, ma'am," he responded as if he were talking about the weather and brought her uniform to her bunk before attempting to look for her boots.

Shepard winced again and there was an awkward silence for a few moments.

"I implemented roll-call for you, as well as some review ship drill and SOPs – the notes are on the data-pad at the foot of your bed. I also, per your list of tasks as XO, inspected the drive-core – though I have to admit, I'm no engineer and my knowledge of the core is a little rusty so I had to rely on Engineer Chief Adams' word that all was going well. I did manage to use the checklist properly though, and got Adams to make some notes. That's on the other pad under the first. In-flight checks are complete too. The team you selected for ground missions had their inspection moved to the afternoon, so they'll be waiting for you after you report to the bridge." He found her boots and put them at the foot of her bed.

Shepard immerged from the toiletry room, the wince increasing as she started to change. "Sounds like you've been doing my job."

"As per your orders, ma'ma."

She froze for a moment, checking her memory. "Come again?" she asked after she couldn't remember what he was talking about.

Pressly stood up straight and placed his hand behind his back in military fashion. "Earlier this morning – so early, no one in the Mess saw you pass by into the medical bay – you went to Dr. Chakwas with a medical complaint regarding your biotic implant. She looked you over and found an inflammation not common to your L3 implant, repaired it, and then prescribed a few hours rest along with a few drugs to help you with the recovery process. I believe xelminal was among them. It's good that you're taking your prescription, ma'am – the doc will be pleased at that. You contacted me to fill in for your XO duties until you could fully recover and the doctor herself informed the captain of the change via commlink. He's expecting you on the bridge soon, though, ma'ma. This shakedown run is pretty much done, I'm just sorry we couldn't visit Earth on the ground." He nodded to their small window overlooking the human homeworld and sighed. "But duty calls and we need to see one more test of the drive-core's reaction to a mass relay before we head directly for Eden Prime via the Arcturus Relay."

Shepard looked at him, thunderstruck at just how well he'd managed to cover her drunken, passed-out, hungover ass.

There was another awkward silence until Pressly nodded, then moved towards the door. "Thirty-seven minutes until we hit the relay, ma'am."

"Hey, Pressly," she said, making him halt just before pressing their door's holographic panel with his omni-tool to open it.

He turned to her, his expression calm and expectant.

"Thanks." It was low, humble reply and she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"When you took command at Elysium, I was in the battle above while you saved my fiancée at the time on the surface," he said plainly. "This is the least I can do, Commander." He paused and looked back at her with a shrug. "Though, just so you know, Dr. Chakwas says she likes Serrice Ice Brandy, ma'am."

Shepard managed a small smile at him. "I'll keep that in mind." She continued to dress.

He nodded to her again and opened the door. "See you on the bridge, ma'am."

She watched him go, still surprised but appreciative, and brought her boots to the window so she could polish them. Not that they really needed to be polished, but it did let her enjoy the view for a few minutes until the xelminal kicked in fully.

And, it let her think.

She'd been lucky, she realized with a little disgust. _Again_. And it, unfortunately, probably wouldn't be the last time.

If Pressly hadn't come up with a brilliant plan to save her XO position last night – this morning? – she'd be on Earth right now and most likely not enjoying the view from her cell in Vancouver's Alliance Command Security Prison. There was no doubt in her mind that if she had been up and about this morning, she'd have been very, _very_ quickly charged for shirking duties. She'd also have been incredibly vocal and creative about saying where they could stick their charges after they realized that she was either still drunk or massively hungover. Then, she'd probably be also charged with 'Deportment Unbecoming an Alliance Officer' and put to ground on Earth to high level MPs for safe-keeping. In fact, if they didn't do that after she'd swear and curse at Anderson and all the admirals enough to make their mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers blush, she'd just punch Anderson in the face to get her off and far away from this ship, the mission it was on, and, most of all, keep her from becoming a council spectre.

_Spectre_.

She felt an unnatural shiver at the mere thought of the word – she'd say 'unholy shiver' if she was actually was polytheistic, but _that_ kind of faith in anything wasn't happening anytime soon. She still couldn't believe that anyone could possibly think she was ready for that kind of job. Council spectres were the _first_ and _last_ line of defence for the main body of civilized space and that was putting it simply. They were spies, soldiers, police officers, armies-of-one, and some of the most dangerous forms of sentient life in the galaxy. They answered to the three ambassadors of the Citadel Council from the three most powerful races – the turians, salarians and asari – and the chain of command stopped there. That meant ultimate authority in all branches of society and spectres like Kriyk was allowed to arrest or even kill anyone as long as it was a part of his missions for the council. In a way, she'd be serving alien values above human ones by accepting the offer and training with Kriyk.

She wasn't adverse to the idea. Nihlus had been right in saying that humans were newcomers to the galaxy and Shepard would have to say that she disliked almost eighty percent of non-military leadership of the Alliance simply because their entire public persona was a show. Integrity: it was a rare thing in all things. She suspected that having her in Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Tasks group could open a lot of doors for the Alliance political agendas for people like Ambassador Udina, the human representative on the Citadel, or Defence Minister Kaslov. But in the end, she'd be the one with the most amount of power in any room with human leadership in it and she wouldn't answer to any of them – just three politicians she didn't know.

Frowning, she put down her boot and activated her omni-tool. They weren't connected to a comm buoy, so the extranet was out, but the Alliance database on ships had permanent data files that could be accessed regardless of extranet uplink. She searched the names of the current councillors, their political views, and careers so far. Half-way through acquiring a little of that, she started downloading everything on the spectres the Alliance had, then made her way into reports on the councillors personal lives. She stopped about three-quarters of the way through the quickly growing collection, realizing that she was _prepping_.

Prepping like she did when she first got assigned to Elysium. Studying faces, dates, and names like she had done with her missions with Alliance Internal Affairs in the 6th Fleet. Researching her future chain of command like she'd done with Major Kyle before Torfan.

Serrica was instinctively prepping to be a spectre even though she had said 'no'.

She stopped all file downloads and hovered over the 'delete all' application for a moment.

Commander Shepard: N7 commando operative; saviour of the Elysium raid by batarian slavers; black-ops AIA operative; lone survivor of a disastrous mission Akuze, Butcher of batarian pirates on Torfan. What about first human spectre?

The scar at her cheek itched. She lifted her free hand rub along its smooth features.

Duty. Honour. Strength. Integrity. Self-discipline. None of it mattered unless you could be selfless in the face of adversity. But when was it going to be enough? When were any of the sacrifices she'd already made going to pay off?

"You will always be expected to give more of whatever is needed. Whenever it will be needed." Standing at attention on parade for her graduation from the N7 course, eyes fixed forward, Serrica hadn't been able to see the face of the rear admiral who had said that from the elevated podium. Nor had she really cared about what he was saying at the time because the seat reserved for Hannah Shepard – the seat that had been directly in her field of vision – had been empty and all she could do was resist the urge to scowl. She realized now, however, that opening statement had managed summed up her entire career so far.

She finished polishing her boots and slipped them onto her feet and sighed longingly as if her entire soul had come out with the damn overdramatic breath.

_'More of whatever is needed. Whenever it will be needed'_.

Always.

In everything.

It was like chasing a shadow of yourself you hadn't seen yet, but had to catch up to regardless of what you knew of it or how far it had gotten ahead of you.

Selfless in the face of adversity. Controlled rage in the presence of unbridled fear.

And wasn't this just another fear?

_Would you sit and hear someone say you backed down from such a challenge?_ The voice in the back of her mind taunted.

She winced at the thought, but not because she would give into the taunting. Despite her doubts, there was something else that scared her more than becoming a something she didn't wish to be: the idea of asking someone else to do the job. That is to say, if she wasn't ready, then who was? And if she didn't accept, who would someone like Nihlus ask in her stead? Clearly, the Alliance was set on getting somebody – anybody – into the spectres. Who would be a better choice?

Anderson? Maybe, but she suspected that ship had most likely already sailed. There was an uneasy wariness to the captain whenever Nihlus or spectres in general were mentioned. Serrica had suspected since day one that it had something to do with his personal life, but had never wished to confront him about it. The captain had been through enough – she could see with the way he held himself and the soberness of his gaze whenever he spoke with her about any kind of command decision. The problem with that was that other than the captain, no one else came close to competent.

_Fuck my life._

Out of anyone she knew, both with and without the N program, she could not name a single person she'd trust with the powers of a spectre other than Anderson, and that assumption was more based on reputation than a true estimation of the man and all he had to offer.

_Shit. That leaves just me._

Who would she rather be a spectre? She wouldn't like herself as a candidate, but who else could fill a little of her qualifications for the job?

She still didn't like the idea – not one bit – but she was starting to see that even aa ghost of what Nihlus had thought of her would be enough to be a good spectre in her books. Given time, she might convince him otherwise, but was he going to give that time? And, worse, what if he convinced her in that same time?

"This is ridiculous," she chastised herself, throwing the polish kit against the window with an unsatisfying clunk against the space-barrier window.

Serrica sighed again after the outburst. After a few moments to herself, she ran both hands up her face and into her short red hair. In her experience, soul-searching was never all it was cracked up to be and she doubted that if she sat here all week that she'd be able to weigh all her thoughts correctly.

She needed to make a decision or drive herself insane. She looked at the time on her omni-tool: six minutes to the Charon Replay.

She sighed again and messaged one of her temples. "Get up," she told herself firmly in the faint reflection she could see in the window she'd just attacked. "Get up and put your spine back in, Rica." _Endure. Be more. Be what is needed even if you think you aren't worth it._ She needed to be XO and she needed to talk to Kriyk in private, so she set her mind to the tasks. She tied her boots quickly and bloused her pants at the bottom before slamming her omni-tool against her door hologram to open it.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()() 

*Heard, Understood and Acknowledged.

_A.N:_

_First things first:_

_ I LIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!_

_Surprising, considering my work schedule and the over-terrible depression my dog dying has had on me. _

_Yet! Here you see a new chapter after a ridiculous amount of time. _

_:S _

_Sorry for the delay…_

_Next!_

_Sorry to go all PTSD on everyone so suddenly, but let's just face it: there is no way it wasn't going to be addressed in a story like this. I'm actually a little surprised that it wasn't touched on more overtly in Shepard's character in the game than in small snippets considering it's content... meh, can't have everything._

_OMG, did I just accidently write a Pressly POV? *checks* Oh, shit – I totally did. Then I took it out to make sure that it didn't clog the story. You'll see it sometime, I suppose. I actually really like it, but I'm also terribly afraid of it. :S And it has soooo many grammatical errors that I'll have to read it over and over and over again – it's not even funny. _

_And I still have to finish that one scene with Delssandro. AHHH! BEGIN PANIC MODE!_

_DELETE PANIC MODE!_

_CONTINUE THROUGH ADVERSITY! RAR!_

_Meanwhile, back on that track the writer of this shit set up:_

_Did anyone else play Mass Effect 2, see the living quarters for the crew and wonder: "Where the hell did everyone besides Shepard sleep in Mass Effect 1?" The most logical explanation would be that they have rooms all along the corridor around the mess-hall, but that could only hold so many people (best guess around 30ish if you squeeze in two/four troops per room depending on the size). I also think that the hangar bay has some rooms in it – mostly for the deck crew, but still there's room to be had elsewhere. Engineering bay seems to look like I can put a few rooms there too… Meh, might have to draw a map somewhere and sort it all out. *EDIT:... Yeah, just remembered the sleeper pods... Still like the idea of some crew staying in rooms though._

_I think I finally made it to the initial scene in the game! WOO! Only took, what?, 7 chapters and nearly 37000 words? HA!_

_And I don't care what anyone says, there is no way that Shepard is somehow in full armour when everyone else is in DEUs and work-uniform or equivalent thereof when the Normandy gets that distress signal. It doesn't make sense! Why are she and Nihlus in FO (fighting order) when she should be just walking around the ship doing normal XO duties? Yes, I know it's to make it a cool entrance for our character at the beginning of the game… but still : It's weird, so I changed it. _

_Hope you liked the BS I pulled to explain relay drift, because I'm tiered of looking at that part and don't wish to rewrite it anymore… seriously..._

_Yeesh... 8000 words... I REALLY need to clean house on chapters like these soon._

_Thank you random people are your followingnessness! And reviews are always welcome (even if you want to destroy my work with polonium rounds)! _


	8. Chapter 8: Contact Report

_Chapter 8: Contact Report_

Serrica took a breath and squared her shoulders before moving out into the _Normandy_'s midriff section. Her and Pressly's room was close to the captain's quarters on this second deck near the lift, within walking distance of the tiny Mess area and the duel staircases heading up to the bridge.

The _Normandy_ was one of the smaller ships she had lived on in her career. She'd been used to cruisers before now and only once before now had she been a member of the regular crew and not simply an attached ground team commander or part of a platoon on her way somewhere. Space on a ship like this was scarce, so the quarters were designed to be the size of small cubicles and were rarely used for anything other than rest and freshening up before duty. On a ship this size, she was lucky to even have a room – most of the crew had the distinct pleasure of using the sleeper pods located near the Mess or on the lower deck near the docking area.

Serrica managed a glance at the empty Mess area, noting happily that no one had decided to stop and rest when the new stealth drive core was getting it's last test, and made her way towards the lift.

There was only one person on duty heading to the stairs from the lift when she got to the stairwell entrance corridor and his eyes went wide when he recognized her. He saluted her even though she wasn't wearing a headdress. Resisting the urge to smile at his anxiety, she instead nodded to him and walked up the curving one staircase. They were both heading in the same direction as both stair sets curved upwards towards the bridge, but she supposed the nervous serviceman thought Commander Shepard wouldn't take to being in the presence of lesser mortals and he chose to take the opposite stairs. She was shaking her head as the doors slid open to the bridge. She walked around the far wall from the right access-stairwell and made her way passed the communications room to the other side of the bridge.

"_Arcturus Prime relay is in range. Connecting through Charon relay._" The bridge comms system resonated about her she turned the corner. The pilot, a certain Flight Lieutenant Moreau with a big mouth, but lots of commendations from flight school, reported the his pre-relay checks over the intercom as per normal for an Alliance military vessel. "_Initiating transmission sequence._"

An enormous galaxy map was displayed on the central command console of the bridge. Around it where sixteen computers and a half-crew monitoring what the computer picked up as vital to it's searching and scanning algorithms. Along the walls were several alcoves with large work-chairs in them where crewmembers could monitor ship systems, munitions, and drive core immersions, – a lot of 'itions'.

"_We are connected. Calculating transit mass and destination._" She saw Nihlus near the cockpit and began making her way passed the map. "_Relay is hot. Acquiring approach vector_." Pressly nodded her as she went by the end of the galaxy map and she popped a quick smile back to him with a nod before continuing to the nose of the ship and the cockpit within.

"_All stations secure for transit._" She passed more alcoves along the ship's neck and then the escape pod and docking hatch before finally making it to the cockpit which contained the central piloting alcove with chair, two co-pilot chairs attached to it with separate computers, and two navigation terminals with seats opposite them.

Lieutenant Alenko was seated in one of the co-pilot chairs, but he didn't raise his head from the terminal as she entered the cockpit.

"_Board is green. Approach run has begun._" She could hear overlap now with the pilot's voice in the seat as she approached. She made a quick note that the pilot should probably police his beard since it wasn't cropped to standard military facial hair protocols then watched through the viewing windows as the _Normandy_ made it's way towards the massive blue energy emanating from the relay's element zero core between large arms and a gyroscope spinning around it at high speeds.

"_Hitting the relay in three… two… one_…" There was a distinctly awful feeling of dizziness and some nausea as the mass effect fields from the relay surrounding the ship for transit smoothly took the _Normandy_ into the practically mass-free corridor attached to another relay. By the time the relay had shot them through into the Exodus Cluster, Shepard was standing comfortably beside the pilot's chair, monitoring the progress of the ship after the propulsion on the screens above with interest.

"Thrusters: check," said the pilot nonchalantly. "Navigation: check. Internal emissions sink engaged. All systems: online. Drift:" He paused checking the screens front of him, then smugly added: "Just under fifteen hundred K."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at that last, went over to the empty co-pilot seat, and checked the drift readings herself. Mass relays created a corridor in space-time between one and other so that ships could travel distances across the galaxy that would take centuries under normal faster than light travelling technology, but before the vessel could travel through any relay, the ship had to give ship's accurate mass calculation and transit destination information. The relays would link using the information as a blueprint to send the ship where it wanted to go. The ship would approach the relay and get spat out at the relative location of other. 'Relative' because, unfortunately, drift from the original destination marker was common since the galaxy had a tendency to change every nanosecond or so – objects in space were constantly moving and often not with as much consistency as most people would assume. The sub-space mass-free corridor created between the relays was incredibly accurate in terms of length, but within the range of the mass relay's 'exit' from corridor, ships often found themselves more than five thousand kilometres out from where they were supposed to end up. This meant that the relay's transit data was not too concerned with the 'width' of the exit of the corridor and individual pilots with the help of computers and calculation aboard ships would have to compensate in transit to hit the four dimensions required for a more accurate exit. No one knew why it was necessary to do so. Why would the protheans create a system of travel that had inherent errors in transit data? It baffled many scientists and prothean experts that this type of error seemed so specific on relay systems. The relay calculation programs were almost deliberately inaccurate for any non-prothean spacecraft.

Serrica felt like whistling at how well the flight lieutenant had judged the 'width' of the corridor, but didn't want to encourage Moreau's cocky attitude. A drift of fifteen hundred kilometres was pretty damn skilled for someone piloting a combat support craft. Getting a frigate to come out of a relay corridor at anything less than three thousand was amazing – fifteen hundred kilometres of drift was nothing short of outstanding.

"Fifteen hundred is good. Your captain will be pleased." Shepard looked back at the turian in surprise from the computer she was monitoring. Surely, the spectre knew how talented someone had to be to have so little drift?

Nihlus' eyes drifted to her, he nodded briefly to her, turned, and then left, heading back towards the galaxy map and who knew where. His footsteps made no sound against the grate beneath and he did not seem to mind that Serrica's concerned gaze followed him.

She was relieved, but also feeling like she should follow to speak with him, explain herself and come to a compromise that he might understand.

"I hate that guy," said Moreau dryly.

This time Shepard had to look away to hide her smile from the cocky pilot.

"Nihlus gave you a compliment," Alenko pointed out. He was frowning, paying only a little attention to the pilot beside him while making modifications to the information on his terminal. "So, you hate him?"

The pilot fiddled with his naval cap and turned towards Alenko with a look of exaggerated derision on his face. "Kaiden, you remember to zip up your jumpsuit on your way out of the bathroom – that's 'good'." He put emphasis on the last word by throwing his index and middle fingers up and creating air-quotations. "I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead. So that's incredible!"

"Hardly halfway across the galaxy, Flight Lieutenant Moreau," commented Shepard. She made a point of checking the emissions sink energy readings that kept the prototype stealth drive up and running. "From Charon to Arcturus is maybe one and sixteen hundred thousandth of the distance to furthest relay we have access to." Satisfied with the readings, she turned back to see the pilot recoiling back from her in abject awe.

"Holy shit, Commander! I didn't even see you there!" He looked back and forth from Lieutenant Alenko and back to the Commander.

Serrica allowed herself a small smile, her eyes darting to Alenko's full grin. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, Lieutenant." She leant against the back of the empty co-pilot's chair and crossed her arms.

Moreau frowned at her. "Why don't you call me Joker like everybody else? 'Flight Lieutenant' or variations of it make me feel like less than the extraordinary human being that I am." He spread his arms out dramatically in the chair, nearly hitting Kaiden, who ducked with a grin.

Shepard shook her head at him. "Fair enough. I thought you hated that nickname in flight school though."

Joker shrugged. "Why fight it now? It didn't apply to me in flight school, but I know who I am now. If the sexy crystal shoe fits, I might as well be the lucky lady that wears it." He winked at her.

"Lucky you," she huffed.

Joker hissed slightly as if in pain. "Right." He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Though I mean not everyone must refer to you as the Butcher, right? I mean, 'Badass of Elysium' is a good title too. And what about your training? Somebody like you had to have had a nickname with either the drill sergeants or with everybody else on course, right?"

Kaiden winced. "Little personal for someone who's your XO, Joker," he mentioned, a slight warning tone in his voice.

"It's fine, Lieutenant," she said with a wave. She then made a show of looking at the current drive core readings.

"Uh, the world is waiting, Commander…" Joker droned impatiently.

Shepard looked at him innocently. "It's fine for you to ask, but that doesn't mean I have to give you answers to any of your questions."

Kaiden laughed quietly and Joker pouted. "Fine," said the pilot with a sigh. "Be all mysterious. You're worse than Nihlus. Though you can make and take a joke or two so I guess you're less likely to be trouble."

Shepard frowned. "What kind of trouble do you suspect of our turian guest, exactly?"

Joker snorted. "Nothing really, but he's a spectre. It's inevitable that he's going to be trouble at sometime, somewhere, and most likely that trouble will find us and suck us in like a black hole of deathly-death. That's what spectres do: they fuck shit up, ma'am. I don't like having one on board."

"The council helped fund this project; from the seat you're sitting in to the prototype core downstairs," reasoned Shepard. "They have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment. Nihlus isn't going to start any trouble on this mission."

Joker gave her a look that bordered on disappointed and contempt. "Come'on, Commander. You're still following the 'official story'?"

"Until I'm allowed to do otherwise, I'm afraid." She rolled her eyes at the thought. _Does everyone on this ship know about the beacon now? _"So much for security and trying to keep this on a need-to-know."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that," chimed Joker. "When the captain got whiff that the secret got out, he discretely locked all outgoing comm channels. Anybody wanting to use the comm, the extranet, or even answer their mail needs to go through a little team Anderson put together himself in engineering that sifts through the data and messages looking for any mention of anything weird."

Just then, Captain Anderson's voice came over the comm and rang through Joker's terminal. "Joker: Status report!" it hailed.

"Speak of the devil." Joker quickly opened the channel on his terminal. "Just cleared the mass relay, Captain. Stealth systems engaged." He double checked the feed from the chief engineer and nodded. "Everything looks solid."

"Good. Find a comm buoy and link us into the network. I want mission reports relayed back to Alliance brass _before_ we reach Eden Prime."

"Aye, aye, Captain. Better brace yourself, sir. I think Nihlus is headed your way."

"He's _already_ here, Lieutenant." His voice was in no way kind and Joker shook his head with a wince at the tone of it.

"Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing." The channel cut out before Joker could respond with an affirmative.

"You get that, Commander?" asked the pilot.

"Yup." She uncrossed her arms and began walking briskly towards the stern of the ship. "Don't break the ship while I'm gone. The captain already sounds upset as it is."

Joker brow remained furrowed, though his wince was now gone. "He always sounds like that though."

"Only when he's talking to you, Joker," piped Kaiden as Shepard walked out of the cockpit. "Only when he's talking to you."

* * *

"You refused." The tone in Captain Anderson's voice made her want to cringe and reconsider, but she wasn't about to do so unless they heard her out first.

Presently, she shrugged. "It's not a political move, sir," she began simply. "_I_ just don't think it's a good idea." Her eyes darted to Nihlus who'd chosen to take a seat in the chair closest to the entrance to the comm room and had yet to say anything to her.

Anderson took a heavy breath. "Well, I'm willing to hear what you have to say, Commander." He voice bordered on confusion, but his intent seemed genuine. "If this is about Torfan –"

"Sir, Torfan was one hell of a shit-show; yes." She straightened up in front of the older soldier, but kept herself at the position of 'at ease' with her hands tucked tightly behind her back. "But it's not the main reason that I think I'm not the right choice."

"Then explain it to me, Shepard," pleaded the captain.

Shepard recoiled. She felt trapped in this little circular room with too many chairs and not even _one_ table to lean against nonchalantly. She could back away onto the railings that kept the ramp in place heading to the door of the room, but that seemed too far.

"I'm not as completely opposed to the idea as I was when Spectre Nihlus approached me," she confessed, tilting her head somewhat and closing her eyes. "I've had some time to think since then – not a lot of time, but enough to know how I feel about this." She turned her head to open her eyes and saw Kriyk watching her intently. "Make no mistake, I still think it's a bad idea. But I've come to the conclusion that if it isn't me, who else is suited in all of the soldiers I know in the Alliance?"

"So, that's a 'yes'?" asked the captain, hopefully.

Serrica looked back at him, her jaw almost locking in place after some grinding. "More of a 'perhaps'." She clicked her jaw out of its tensing tendency. "After Torfan and Akuze, I never go all-or-nothing lightly."

"It's obvious to me that you believe you must show me more of who you are before I bring your name forward to the Council for spectre candidacy." The spectre had chosen to remain seated as he reasoned – he would have to refrain from stressing the commander's already tight nerves by keeping his distance and not being his usual quietly-pacing-with-reserve self until he gained more of her trust. "And if you think it wiser, I could recommend that we take on several more missions together than what is usually standard between the mentor and the mentoree in spectre training. Would this help in your decision?"

Serrica visibly relaxed at the mention of what was essentially going to be her 'more-time-to-convince-you-not-to-pick-me' time and Kriyk suspected that she thought she would eventually succeed in dissuading him. He had no doubt that he'd missed much of what made her into the woman she was – that much was abundantly clear from the end of their last discussion – but he still believed in his feeling that she was the right selection regardless of how terribly he'd judged her value system. There was something about this human…

There was a kind of intensity within her and without her, even when she was chaotic. He could not quantify it and it was something he doubted she or he could fathom.

She watched him now, that strange, utterly unknown strength showing in her resilient eyes. "I think I would only agree to that if you let me walk at the end if I wanted to," she said finally.

Kriyk nodded. "That goes without saying, I think." He got to his feet and walked over to extend a talon to her slowly.

She was guarded, of course. Reluctance showed even as she extended her hand out to return his gesture, but in the end she nodded and shook his talon. "Just keep in mind that you might not like what I show you," she warned, eyes narrowing slightly. "I don't hate you, Nihlus, I just think you'd dead wrong."

The turian opened his mandibles and mouth to say something when Joker's earnestly scared voice rang through the comm room.

"Captain! We've got a problem."

"Report," Anderson ordered.

"Transmission from Eden Prime, sir – You better see this."

Shepard felt a chill run down her spine at the urgency in his voice and immediately walked over to the holographic emitter at the end of the comm room. She set it up as a viewing-screen and nodded to the captain.

The feed had degraded, but the images were clear: Alliance Marines in a fire-fight with the date and time stamp on the bottom left corner of the feed while the location was a series of bounced satellite locations. What the marines were engaging wasn't clear, in fact the signal was so poor Serrica could barely make out that they were truly marines, but they were clearly loosing ground wherever they were.

An officer managed to grab the feed and shove it into his face. "Contact! Grid: 56873 87543! Enemy is in unknown combat armour and carry several mechanical drones, heavy arms, and an overwhelming force! The entire unit was engaged almost simultaneously in a multi-pronged attack across a thirty-eight-kilometre radius – including the city, outlaying farms, and tram-station! Dig site is compromised! I say again: DIG SITE IS COMPRIMISED! Bounce this report of any channel you can! All other local communications have been cut. We need reinforcements here _yesterday_! We need –"

Shepard shut her eyes briefly as a bullet when through the man's head in the feed and opened them in thought. _Disrupter rounds_, she thought analytically. It had to be – that thing went right through the officer's shields without so much as an electronic ripple. Whoever these invaders were, they were well equipped and co-ordinated enough to initiate a simultaneous, multi-pronged attack across multiple types of terrain if the entire unit was engaged.

The feed swung over to the enemy fire in an attempt to get a glimpse of the attackers, but a rocket hit the ground in front of whoever was using the omni-tool to record the information and sent the marine sprawling backwards. When the originator got up, he or she managed to catch a glimpse of – something – descending on the distant horizon.

Shepard squinted at what amounted to barely a second or three. It looked like an enormous red-coloured hand was reaching down out of the sky from a lightning storm. It could have been a ship of some sort, but if so it was a dreadnaught of insurmountable size and she couldn't recognize the make, style or build of the thing at all.

The thing – ship – made a groaning noise so loud the marine filming it feel over again, throwing it out of view. Then the marine was running away with rockets hitting either side of a retreating line of soldiers.

One missile hit just to the side of the feed and the image went dead.

"Everything cuts out after that. No comm traffic at all." Joker's worried voice was the only sound in the room other than Shepard's ringing ears. "It just goes dead. There's nothing."

Anderson got his XO's attention. "Reverse and slow at time: 38."

Shepard nodded and reversed to see the enormous hand-like structure in a series of freezing frames.

Nihlus' mandibles twitched outward and his eyes were wide with shock at the slow-motion sight of the hand-like ship entering Eden Prime's lower atmosphere. Shepard couldn't say that she felt any different than he looked when she saw the images again.

"How much time to get there and are we the only ones to see this, Joker?"

End right before the jump to Eden Prime

Joker didn't hide the anxiety in his voice. "I've already pulled in a request for aid, but there are no other Alliance ships in the area. We're seventeen minutes out if I push her, sir."

"Than push her, Joker! Ping me when we hit the system."

"Yes, sir!"

Anderson walked forward and took Shepard's arm. "You have a team, Commander? Small and fast? That's our best chance to secure the beacon."

Rica pried her eyes from the image and locked them with Anderson's for a moment. "I got one, sir. They'll be suited up in less than fifteen. Briefing for them?"

"Tell them what you think is necessary." The captain nodded towards the door. "Get going – this mission just got a lot more complicated." He looked around for Nihlus, but found that the turian had already left the room. He sighed at that, but let go of Shepard's arm. "Get me a comms specialist from the bridge on your way out. I'm going to try and scramble more Alliance support before we commit, but I won't hold my breath if Joker says there's no one else in the area."

Shepard saluted quickly and all but ran on the ramp heading to the door.


	9. Chapter 9: Fly Before Falling

_Chapter 9: Fly Before Falling_

"I work faster on my own!" Nihlus' yelled over the sound of air rushing out of the hangar bay and into Eden Prime's atmosphere. His voice indicated that the matter was not up for debate and shut his helmet before heading towards the open end of the _Normandy._ Captain Anderson was not in a position to disagree with the turian as the hangar bay ramp opened so the spectre could jump out and land into the first drop point. The captain nodded, not exactly approving of the lack of a squad for the spectre, but unable to supersede his plan, and turned towards Shepard and her infiltration team as she approached in full combat gear.

"Status, Commander?" he inquired, yelling above the air rushing into the hangar bay.

Nihlus gave her a glance – she couldn't tell it's meaning as she couldn't see his face beneath the helmet visor – before taking a running jump off the ramp. An operator closed the ramp behind him as he cleared it.

"Ready as we'll ever be, sir." Shepard sheathed the turian military issue talon-blade into the scabbard behind her right shoulder and locked it there for the jump. She activated her omni-tool and stopped moving to let the automated helmet build up. It connected in several pieces starting at her neck, then the sides of her head, then came over her forehead and over her vision with a few snaps before locking the visor in place. The breathing apparatus hissed shut and Shepard felt the familiar feeling of recycled air being circulated in her helmet before the targeting computer came to life and the dim light lit the inside of her helmet. She stretched her neck out left-to-right and side-to-side as the onboard systems connected to the exoskeleton monitored the suit's helmet seals.

Onxy armour was specially made for N7 Operatives and she'd programmed and modified this suit herself. While the helmet could be removed as a whole once engaged, it could still be stored in pre-programmed pieces on the back, sides and front of the suit. Her armour also had a few aspects not usually used with standard issue equipment. One was, of course, the new CALIX adaptive stealth camouflage system that she had only just acquired from Armax industries. It was the latest upgrade using the old stealth technologies that bent light for a short time to make it seem as if anything behind the armour was invisible to at the most kinds of eyes. Krogan and Salarians would be much harder to fool with it in activation, as they could observe different light spectrums, but a small group of humans, batarians, asari, and even turians would have trouble locating her without the aid of computers.

The omni-blade attachment was one of the more deadly features on the suit that she could use since it was basically a pop out electroshock sword on her arm. She grinned at it in genuine approval; nothing said 'your ass is mine' like cutting your opponent in half with a flash-forged silicon-carbide blade fuelled by good programming and almost pure, unrequited rage.

"Remember, your team's the muscle and support team in this Op, Shepard." Captain Anderson's voice rang out in her suit's communication package and jarred her out of the admiration she was showing to the omni-blade. "Nihlus will scout ahead and provide both you and the ship with tactical intel on the ground as you advance through to the dig site. No foul-ups: I mean it. Your mission is to get to that beacon and secure it for pickup at any cost."

Mercy, Serrica hated when commanders used the line: 'at any cost'. "We'll get it done, sir," she replied through her teeth.

"The mission's all yours, Shepard. Don't let me down."

He moved out of the way and off towards the ship's lift as Lieutenant Alenko approached her. "Helmets on and all suits sealed. Weapons and tech are good to go and Jump-prep's done, ma'am," he informed her, shaking the magnetic seal that kept his pistol in place.

Shepard nodded, exaggerating the movement a little to make it show with her armour on. "Any problems before we jump I should know about, Alenko?"

After much discussion with Captain Anderson, Shepard had convinced him to throw out the original plan to give her another officer as a Second-In-Command, but if his service records were any indication, Alenko was far too valuable to leave as a co-pilot. He'd initially enlisted in the marine medical core before the Alliance found out just how powerful a biotic he actually was and got him serving with the Fleet. Shepard found it a little insulting that he hadn't been placed on the list of possible candidates for a ground team – the medic experience alone was worth his weight in credits.

She'd initially had an entire platoon to choose from, but after a few days of meeting, greeting, studying profiles, and talking with the soldiers, she'd chosen a small combat team for ground assault with little to no trouble since Anderson had seen fit to select some excellent candidates for his crew.

They were six in total including herself: Lieutenant Alenko, her 2IC and biotic support specialist; Service Chief Bonkowski, a capable squad leader if the need arose and heavy weapons specialist; Corporal Jenkins, a skilled shot with both the Avenger and the Hammer sniper rifle and assault rifle models and a local originally born on Eden Prime before he joined the Alliance; Corporal Lexington, their technically savvy programmer and hacker with some interest in demolitions; and Private Sagara, a biotic vanguard powerhouse who would come in handy if they had to fight in close quarters and had to use weapons like that shotgun of hers, though Shepard suspected the private would have to use her assault rifle more often than not on this mission.

Kaiden made a face behind his helmet's transparent visor before answering Shepard's question. "Mostly, they're nervous as hell, ma'am. By now, the whole ship knows we're after a prothean beacon. They're professionals for the most part and damned talented, but they are just a little bit freaked out. Who wouldn't when what we find down there could jump our technology forward a thousand years the way the ruins on Mars did?"

"I'll give them a little chat before the Jump then – ease a little tension." She didn't wait for him to say anything else. She activated her section's comm network and saw their names and rank pop up on a small viewing window in the corner of her helmet's visor. "Bravo team: On me," she ordered, using their section ID and motioning for them to gather.

They converged in a semi-circle in front of her. Lexington stepped into her right, while Jenkins and Sagara were on her left. Bonkowski chose to stay to her front with Alenko as they gathered in close. No one save Alenko had seen fit to switch their visor reflectors off which made it look like Shepard was looking into a group of mirrors attached to helmets.

Serrica sighed and squared her shoulders. "Alright. Gents and lady, we're after a prothean beacon," she stated simply. "Any questions?"

She could almost _feel_ Kaiden resist the urge to slap the forehead of his helmet in frustration. Grinning at teasing him, but not looking at his forlorn face, she ordered: "Take the reflectors off, folks. We need to talk and all of us know it now, so remove head from ass and let me see you before you jump into hell with me, m'dears."

One by one, each member of the team used their omni-tool to deactivate the reflector visors used for jumps in daylight and one by one, Shepard could see that the statement she'd opened with had worried them. Not scared, just nervous. It wasn't a bad thing – she'd chosen well, it seemed.

"I get it," she began once she'd seen all of their faces. "Nobody expected to be going after a beacon and nobody expected to have to drop into a hostile zone to kick invaders-asses. But alas, the beacon is below with enemy combatants all about trying to keep us from it. There are sixteen other people with your qualifications that I could have chosen from for a ground team." She pointed at each of them in turn as she continued. "This is the best combo I can think of both in terms of your skill sets and your personalities – _that_'s why you're in this position, folks. I'm not expecting you all to do anything impossible, but I do expect you to do your jobs." She made a point of taking her pistol from her belt and examining it in its non-active, closed and compact form. "We are here to kill the jackasses who have decided to invade a colony and make sure they don't get what they came for." She spun the pistol a few times using her biotics and let go after a few high-speed spins. The pistol landed in her hand and immediately expanded – sight, barrel, and grip popping out to make it functional – into her open palm. "We are taking that beacon." She lifted the pistol to the side of her helmet, tapped it against her visor and winked at them.

She looked at her team carefully. _Most are with me. Lexington and Jenkins are good friends if I'm reading them right and they're on the same page as to how to deal with our invader-guests, regardless of the beacon: They're good to kick enemy the fuck off the planet. Sagara has still got the jitters though – from what, I don't know – and Bonkowski is gauging my command ability on Sagara's reactions_. "Your job is to defend the Alliance and all of her affiliates." She began, holding Sagara's gaze in a serious, but non-challenging manner. "Well, I must say that the whole colony – not to mention the entire unit under siege on the planet – needs us to succeed. If we get that beacon, the enemy will follow us, yes," she acknowledged the fear of that since she had yet to meet anyone who wanted to play bait for an unknown enemy that had besieged an entire colony. "But that means we can give the hell they have summoned by screwing us and save the colony." She deliberately left out 'save what was left of the colony' – Eden Prime was no longer a paradise and preliminary scans had shown that there were a _lot_ of dead bodies down there.

Rica collapsed her pistol, stored it against the magnetic holster on her side, and then jutted out her thumb out of a clenched fist pointing towards the cargo bay door. "We should welcome them to our hell, don't you think?"

That did it – Sagara was convinced to kick some ass now and Bonkowski was convinced because the team was able to assimilate the pep-talk. He nodded to her ever so slightly and Alenko visibly relaxed at her side.

"_Stand by, Jump team two,_" chimed the ship's VI. _Perfect timing, m'dear Shadowtread_, thought Serrica to the ship's VI. She signalled her squad to line up towards the cargo bay doors. All of them lined up and squared their shoulders in preparation for the drop.

Joker chose to send them off: "_Approaching drop point two_." Moreau was dropping them less than three kilometres from the main settlement. It was far enough from the monster of a ship that had landed near the prothean dig site to keep it from immediately attacking the ground team, but meant that Shepard's team had eight-kilometer push to get to the dig site once they landed.

A large mass effect barrier went up behind her squad as the hangar bay door opened and each activated their magnetic boots. Air whisked around them as Serrica quickly went through her quick pre-jump check. She lined up along the edge of the ramp near the open door and waited for her cue from Corporal Lexington behind her when the lights on the ramp switched from red to green. One shove on her shoulder was all she needed to feel in order to jump.

Running towards the end of the Normandy's ramp, she launched herself into the air off the rear of the ship, disengaged her boots, and saw only clouds for a few moments before closing her eyes. "Now for wrath! Now for ruin! And the World's ending!" she screamed over the squad's private channel, though Serrica doubted that any of them understood the reference to a fictional king riding into battle against _really _bad odds as she fell through Eden Prime's atmosphere.

Serrica had skydived with her mother for the first time when she had turned fourteen and had taken to it like a sport ever since. With her armour and jump gear on, she felt less comfortable – less free – but there was still a sense of peace about falling through clouds and clear skies. She closed her eyes and imagined the sound of the air whisking and rushing across her armour and smiled.

A sudden gust of air throwing her off-course made her focus again and she opened her eyes to read the rapidly receding numbers of four thousand and eight hundred meters in the corner of her helmet monitor.

_Well, shit,_ she thought with a half-laugh. Had she seriously just dozed off for a few a hundred meters while free falling on a combat jump? _Who the fuck does that?_

She closed her eyes again, then waited a few moments and took a few deep breaths before realizing that Navigator Pressly was yelling on her comm frequency: "Commander Shepard! Deploy mass decelerators!" He wasn't panicking yet, but it was sure close – his voice's breaking point. How long had he been trying to get through to her before she'd finally heard him?

"Wilco, deploying," she replied, swinging out into a more appropriate arched, box position and reaching over to activate her pre-landing procedure on her left-shoulder tool. This launched the mass decelerators from the jump-assembly attached to her armour plating. They would act like a proverbial net for her to land without making her body a pile of putty on the street.

Eighteen mass decelerators for her individual decent surrounded her for a moment then used shot down towards the earth below her. They plotted course along her desent vector towards one of eighteen pre-planned landing zone and she adjusted her fall path to coincide with theirs. Each device she passed used up its element zero core to create a mass effect field around her to slow her desent and all she had to do was get close enough to them. Her helmet chimed in a warning in red lettering on the visor's left display screen: 2000 meters to go at a speed of 140 kph with only three more decelerators to hit before the landing zone. When she got passed the last device, she activated the thrusters on her spine assembly and felt her stomach lurch at the sudden deceleration, but recovered in time to brace herself.

Two meters from the ground, she turned the thrusters off and landed in the long grass bracing with a swat position as she thudded into the soil. Rica immediately pulled the Avenger Six assault rifle off of the magnetic clamp on her back and did a quick scan of the area. Seeing no sigh of movement or life around her or on her display's sensory readings, she slammed the release button on her omni-tool to release the spine-assembly for jumping from her suit.

"Report!" she called onto her team's channel as she braced for the hard jerks as the jump-assembly ejected from her combat-exoskeleton and onto the grass below.

"Alenko here, ma'am. I've got Lex and Sagara: All okay. Saw you land. Heading to your position now."

"Acknowledged," she nodded and stepped out of her small area of debris towards the side of the hill she'd just landed on and took a knee. "Bono, Jenkins – you alive?"

"Commander, this is Bonkowski," said the master corporal – he sounded like he was huffing. "Jenkins had a rough landing, but he'll live. He hit earth a good two hundred meters from his intended drop point, but we're back on track now. Heading to you now. Might be a little late."

"Don't be," she ordered curtly. "Hustle up, Chief. I mean it! We're on the clock."

"Yes, ma'am!" She could see him in the distance to the east further down the hill and watched him wave aggressively at Jenkins who looked like he was covered in mud.

Alenko made it to her position as she looked back at her omni-tool.

"Lex and Sagara are slowly making a very temporary OP* just below the crest of this hill to see if they can observe some the damage to our entry point and find a route in," he said over their private channel reserved for conversations between the senior members of the group – the master corporal included. "Any deviations from the plan?"

"We wait for a sitrep on Jenkins," she said, not taking her eyes off the holographic display of the area she was studying. The _Normandy_ was doing a survey of the area from the lower atmosphere as it circled the area for signs of the beacon so she could get a fairly accurate depiction their ground ahead without risking any of her crew getting visual confirmation. "Then we find a crack by sensory means or otherwise and head into the outer farms and farming cooperation outlet buildings. Then we hit the dig site. Shouldn't be more than ten kilometers in." She looked up to see Jenkins and Bonkowski kneel beside her. It was now that she realised that Jenkins looked like his armour had been dented in several places and his comms were obviously down from the damaged he'd received on his helmet and back plates.

"What the fuck happened to you?" she demanded, dimming her reflector-sunshield down so the corporal could see her eyes.

Jenkins popped his helmet off in its full, uncollapsed form and looked regretful as hell. "I hit a gas-bag – you know, those 'harmless' animals I was telling you about – when I landed. It – uh – exploded." His eyes lit up as he raised his head. "I'm all right though, ma'am. Ready to go."

"You flew twenty meters after you hit a gas-bag the size of a horse, hit a tree and landed in a swamp," commented Chief Bonkowski dryly. "Your comms are down from the damage to your suit and you crushed a rifle into nothing when you landed."

Shepard almost laughed, but instead narrowed her eyes at Jenkins. "You're other weapon is still functional?"

"Yes, ma'am. My secondary assault rifle is still good to go," nodded Jenkins feverently.

"Your comms are completely down?" she asked warningly.

But the corporal shrugged. "Nothing Lexington can't fix quick, Commander," he said confidently.

Shepard's eyes darted to Alenko and Kaiden shook his head ever so slightly. But Shepard looked back at the young man before her and sighed. "Bono," her tempered eyes caught those of the gunnery chief through his helmet. "Go replace Lex and get him down here to repair what he can. Look for this entry point when you get up there and get ready to move in ten." She transferred files to the NCO.

Bonkowski looked as if he was going to disagree, so was Alenko, but the chief did as he was told with a 'yes, ma'am' before getting to his feet and running to the crest of the hill.

Alenko was mercifully silent, but again, she could _feel_ him disapproving of the decision. "He's fine," she droned to both he and Bono over the private comm. "I'll take a willing warrior with a spine over a normal, everyday soldier any day of the week. His suit isn't as bad as it looks and the comms trouble is the most common problem in situations like these." She paused, hoping that they were listening properly. "I _have_ been in those types of situations, gentlemen. He'll be fine as long as we keep him that way with smart decisions and some good tactics."

She didn't wait for a reply and checked her omni-tool again. "As soon as Lexington gives the Tree-hugger the okay for comms and armour, we move to the entry point on the farm structures unless we see something that stops us in our tracks. We need to get to that dig site ASAP."

*OP: Observation Point

_A.N.: _

_Holy crap, this is late. :S Sorry, I've been having a busy summer. But now my schedule isn't as bad as it was and I have time to write a little more than usual! WEEE!_

_Notes on this chapter:_

_Wonder what Kaiden thinks of that knife Shepard's wearing... Side-story material perhaps? Christ, that makes two of them that I haven't written yet and two that aren't finished. STOP GIVING ME MORE IDEAS, BRAIN!_

_Exoskeletons are some the coolest pieces of technology we have today – that's right, I said __**today**__. Take a look through Google and you'll see some the designs from various armies and medical companies. They cost a shit-load because nobody makes them in bulk and there's still a lot of improvement to be made for them to function like they do for ME, but they're pretty damn cool. _

_The cloaking technology isn't impossible either. See stuff like Quantum Stealth technology and panel/coating crypsis. Though what I have here is a farfetched notion because of the amount of perspectives you need to fool with it constantly as Shepard is moving and the fact that the suit is consistently creating an image of whatever is behind her depending on the person looking. This is what is otherwise known as 'BS' or 'Magic' as far as science is concerned, but 'meh'. I like having a cloaked N7 walking around the battlefield… SO THERE!_

_Box man is the position everyone usually sees in skydiving pics. Easy, simple, and you can get to every other position from box… Well, technically you can get to any position from whatever position you're in free fall (typical or not), but box is a good one to start from because you have a lot of control with it (says the chick who's only been skydiving twice :S)._


	10. Chapter 10: At Some Disputed Barricade

_Chapter 10: At Some Disputed Barricade_

"I'm near the Spaceport, Shepard. Something big went down here. A _lot_ of bodies," said Nihlus over the con. "I'm going to check it out."

"Acknowledged, we'll join you as soon as we can." She made note of how far away Nihlus was and checked the mapping system on her omni-tool. The main bridge in front of them leading to the high-density gate the Alliance had quickly been set up to control access to the dig site was out and she didn't want to find a way around – that would take too much time – or cross the river below it in armour. She looked south towards the way they had come at the trail of destruction they are yet unseen enemy had created. They'd come across more than a few dead bodies along the way. Whole families had been incinerated in their homes and even here there were charred, half-charred and simply limp corpses around them – they had yet to locate a survivor. Skycars were down left, right and centre too while most of the buildings right up to the small building and a pump house to her left were little more than rubble. She glanced up at the mostly intact farming resource centre skyscraper near the bridge on her side and saw a smaller, but sturdy counterpart across the river on higher ground. They'd only need to get to the third floor to use a cable shot and set up a zip-line to get across, but she didn't know if –

"Contact! North-east flank!" screamed Jenkins as something opened fire on him to her right. Training kicked in and Shepard flew down to a knee in time to swing her assault rifle mussel towards the incoming enemy. "Bravo team, engage at max distance, normal rate, precision shots only! Keep your heads and bring em' down people!" Speaking of which, she opened fire beside Jenkins' head and hit a hovering mechanical drone that was about to open up on him. It was armed with a small automatic pistol of some type attached to its hover system and shot wildly about itself as it exploded, sending Jenkins and Lexington diving to the ground to avoid the debris. Three more hovering drones advanced from that direction and she opened fire.

She immediately activated the signal to contact the _Normandy_. "Normandy, this is Bravo Team. Contact!"

Static was all she heard over the channel.

"I say again, Normandy, this is Shepard! _Contact_! Do you read?"

She growled at the lack of response. She tried Nihlus: "Alpha, this is Bravo Team, do you copy?" The signal was jammed. Her team was alone.

Shepard activated the CALIX stealth camouflage and made a run for the corner of the broken building to her left. "Suppressing fire, Bono – put that machine-gun to good use! Sagara, you better be watching for any flanking movements on him!" she ordered as she ran. Making it to the corner she wanted just as she heard Bonkowski open up from the high ground behind some building debris. She slid into a kneeling position and lent against the side of the metal building to help support her firing position and fired at the three extra drones. "Lex, Jenkins: get out of there and find some cover towards my location! Alenko, can you throw a barrier up to cover them?"

"It's up commander," she saw the flash of blue sprig up as Kaiden's biotic ballistic barrier covered the troops like a wall as they ran away. "But we have more company!"

"He's right, Commander! Troopers advancing from the south-west!" said Sagara, her nasal accent ringing through the channel in a flustered huff. "Except – I don't know what they are! They look like –"

"Geth," finished Alenko soberly. "I know it sounds crazy, Commander, but they look like geth."

Shepard swung the sight of her rifle over to they're six and saw the advancing force of twelve troopers. Long necks with heads like large flashlights, their metallic bodies had large wires attached from their extremities to their main body and they moved smoothly but with a robotic rigidness to their stride. A strange type of pulse rifle was in their alien hands and when they got in range of Sagara and Bonkowski, the entire squad of troopers opened up at once, bringing a hail of laser fire down upon the two humans.

"No time to wonder about that," she muttered to herself. No one had seen the geth outside the Perseus Veil in centuries, but here they were begging to be targets for her. "Advance on the drones!" she ordered as she fired a burst of incendiary ammunition onto the closest geth trooper. That action drew half of the geth section's fire on her and she cloaked as she got up to run for the bridge. They immediately compensated – being machines that could see different spectrums of light easier and could compensate to her camouflage faster than any eye could– and fired at her just as she made it to cover. The bullets clipped her shields, but otherwise did not do much in the way of damage. "Disrupter shields don't suck, but don't test them too much, people!" she informed the group, quickly looking at her omni-tool map display for good ground to retreat to. "Take out those drones and head to that resource centre with the skycar lot! MOVE, PEOPLE! Tactical retreat into that building!" She turned and fired accurate covering shots towards the troopers before spinning back around and breaking into a sprint towards the building main doors and remaining drones. Lexington's omni-tool shot out a disruptor charge that fried the shielding off the drone directly ahead of her, letting her turn the thing into junk with a single shot from her rifle. Jenkins took out the other two with a hail of bullets from his assault rifle. The chief and private used varying suppressing fire to withdraw from their position in the direction Shepard had ordered. When she made it inside, she could hear Alenko on the radio again.

"Commander, gonna need some help here!"

"Acknowledged." She turned and cleared what used to be a coffee table to prop her rifle up. She was in place in time to take six well-aimed shots at the troopers chasing Alenko, Bono and Sagara. She disabled two and managed to clip the arm off another before they adjusted their aim for her as the bigger threat. She took cover and saw Jenkins make in it through the crumpled-up main doors. "Jenkins," she ordered, moving for the stairwell on the far side of the room. "Take pot shots until the LT and company get here – keep their attention on you as much as possible. Lex, get up to the third floor with me and find a support wall to attach a zip-line end onto using that kit of yours. We need to get across that river to get to the dig site. Bring a machine gun."

"Aye, ma'am," said Jenkins – his transmitter was still a little damaged and his voice wasn't coming through as clearly on the network, but she could still make him out. "Lex is running up after you now. Rest are ten meters from the door."

"Got your back, Commander!" said Lex, trying to keep pace with her on the stairs and sporting a lighter version of Chief Bonkowski's weapon in his hands. "What's the plan?"

She ignored his question, dodged a body hanging limply over the railings, and stopped at the third floor door. When she kicked it open, her eyes went wide in shock and she leapt backwards. She fell rearward, tossing out two spinning fragmentation grenades into the open door as she went, and tumbled hard down the stairs, only gaining control after hitting more than twenty metal in a series of terrible twangs and thunks. The staggering amount of geth in the room above her had opened fire where she had just been and the doorway practically melted with the amount of bullets that streamed through and around it.

"Holy-shit!" she managed to spit out before activating her fusion grenades via omni-tool remote. A hail of fire and metal fragments flew down the stairwell as Lexington advanced to her side, pointing his rifle at where the third floor entrance used to be.

"Commander?" Lexington asked – there was true concern in his voice; she must have really flown down the stairs.

She waved him off after letting him help her to her feet. "Contact, third-floor!" She informed the rest of the team, covering the upper part of the staircase with her rifle even though she could barely see through the debris, dust and burning walls. "At least ten of them, but I only got a quick look." She closed her eyes for a moment to collect herself, then opened them with a hard shrug-off and a quick breath. "Alenko, grab who you need and see if we need to clear the second floor. I'm clearing the third floor room on my own. Lexington – be ready to move with that line when I'm done."

There was a stunned silence on the comm-channel.

She didn't wait for a debate and charged up the stairs and into the smoky debris. The sensors in her helmet visor struggled to compensate for the visual deprivation, but she found the door. Extending her left arm, she activated the ejection system again to toss her two remaining grenades into the room, programming them to spin on an arc towards the far left and right as she got to the entrance. She then activated her stealth system as the grenades exploded ahead of her and drove into the room. She only undetectable after the first headshot she registered on the closest geth and received two rounds to the centre of her armour for her trouble immediately. Neither penetrated her plates completely, but they flew through her shields like a knife through butter made it hard to breathe as she took her aimed shots at the remaining geth squad members. There were only five left when she entered the room – the grenades had done their job – and she made quick work of them, shooting of their flashlight heads with an ease and grace that made her want to grin like a mad-woman despite the large bruises she'd now sport on her chest. The remaining geth trooper took cover on the far side of the room near the window. She could hear it crackling out communications from behind a large research desk and ran towards the sound. She slid over the desk on one hip, activating her omni-blade and swinging down in a violently accurate attack to the chest of the geth trooper. It tried to aim at her with its rifle, but she had already sliced the majority of its chest plate in half. There were sparks and a few sputtered words in a mechanical language before the main light on his 'head' went out. She deactivated her omni-blade and made a second sweep of the room. Back at the large, open-concept window, she overlooked the street and river, saw the fire-fight below dwindling down and nodded.

"Clear," she said simply over the comm. "Alenko: sitrep on that second floor now! Lex: get in here and set up a zip-line!"

"Uh – Aye, aye, commander!" Kaiden seemed very surprised to hear her voice over the comm again.

Corporal Lexington made his way to her, double-tapping any all geth he saw along the way to make sure they wouldn't get up again. She took touched his shoulder and pointed to the alliance tower set up across the river. "That's your target," she said simply. "I want a zip-line for it from here in five minutes or less." She turned to his shocked face. "I don't want to hear 'that's not possible ma'am'," she warned. "I want to hear: 'I need this and this to make that work for you, ma'am'." She turned towards the door when he didn't reply.

"Where's my sitrep on the second floor, Alenko?" she demanded, looking at the other side of the river below as she called over the comms.

"As clear as I can make it, Commander." He sounded unsure, but they didn't have the time to be thorough.

She nodded, noting the shapes of several geth advancing on the building and taking a few shot with her assault rifle. "Good enough for me. Get to my location and keep Sagara guarding the stairwell into this room."

"On it, Shepard."

She turned slightly to see that Lexington was working on the fall wall near the stairwell, taking off a fairly large piece of equipment from the rear of his combat-suit. "Lex," she got his attention for a moment and he looked up. "You need anything?"

The corporal shook his head slightly. "No, ma'am." He went back to his work. "But if you don't mind me saying, it's going to be a fucking miracle if this works."

She grinned. "No promises, but I'm not too terrible with miracles." She made a point to withhold that the only miracles she'd been able to conjure resulted in saving her own skin even if she hadn't wanted as such.

"Commander, Bono here with Sagara and Alenko coming up the stairs to you."

"Take overwatch out that window and fire when necessary – I don't like these uninvited guests." She looked back to see a figure at the doorway to the stairs as Bonkowski took short burst at the geth below them. "You good, Sagara?"

"Yes, ma'am," replied the young woman. "Anything comes up this way, it dies – uh, or sputters. Whatever machines do when they take a shotgun to the face – er, or headlight."

"Good." Shepard moved to a position where she could aid Bono. "Alenko, help Lex. I want that line up. The faster we get to the dig site, the faster we don't die by being surrounded and shot at here." She started taking shots a new group of geth troopers just in time to watch a large object drop from supposedly nothing above them. She quickly referenced her omni-tool map and could find nothing in the interference to indicate that there was a dropship of any kind above their position.

"Commander, line is gonna be shot in twenty seconds," reported Lex. She looked over her shoulder to see that Alenko and the corporal were moving towards the window with a device that attached to the mussel of Lexington's rifle which attached to a hefty length of line unspooled from Lex's back-tech.

"Ma'am, I don't mean to be a prig," said the chief, "but that thing that just landed looks like it could seriously ruin our day." Shepard agreed as she watched the dropped object unfold and begin moving to take up a firing position. It resembled a spider, though it couldn't move in bursts of speed like one, but it was clearly of geth make since it had a head on a swivel that held a very bright light source in the centre. It was large enough that it had to be some kind of heavy weapon, but Rica didn't want to find out what kind of firepower it could unleash if it was one.

Lex fired the cable into the building across the river and a booster-charged bold escaped from the release and sung towards the window of the building in front of them.

Shepard didn't wait too long after the corporal reeled in as much slack as he could. "Zip-line as follows: Lex, Alenko, Sagara, Bono, then me. Do not fall off – we will not be fishing you out of the river!"

She took a shot at the spider-bot as it clamped into the ground like a high-powered mobile-artillery would do just before charging or ejecting its ordnance and the shot didn't even slow it down – only rippled its shields.

"MOVE!" she barked as Lex powered up his omni-tool and prepared to attach to the cable. The corporal was on only a few moments before Alenko. Sagara ran full tilt from the other end of the room towards the tether and leaped off the building towards it. The chief was only just able to through his machine gun onto his back in time to clamp on to the line and Shepard jumped like Sagara, only she activated her CALIX stealth system before doing so.

There was an alert triggered in her helmet and she turned her head back in time to see the spider-tank's blue-energy weaponry hit the room she was only just in. The shockwave nearly sent her flying off the tether, but her omni-tool's silicon-carbide tether clamp miraculously stayed attached to the line.

What was even more miraculous was that the cable was still holding against the building they'd just escaped. She looked back again and noticed some geth troopers moving through the rubble of the floor they'd just been on.

_Shit, they're cutting the line._

The timer on the edge of her helmet monitor flashed a warning to indicate the tether was coming to an end. She turned back just in time to see Jenkins take up a firing position towards her. _Oh, fucking mercy! He's going to shoot!_

Shepard skidded her landing on the first floor of the building, disengaged her omni-clamp and immediately fell sliding backward onto the floor to avoid the hail of bullets from Jenkins' rifle towards the enemy on the other side of the zip-line.

"Christ-on-a-shit-stick!" That had been _way_ to close to her head. "Check your _fucking_ fire, Jenkins!" Rica barked and Jenkins' looked at her in horror. Sagara shoved in beside him and used her assault rifle to shoot more rounds the targets on the other end.

"Sagara, put that rifle down and pick up your shotgun! You're clearing this building with Alenko this instant! Bono, come to the front and pelt them with bullets with Jenkins! Lex detonate the other side of the zip-line now!" A small explosion on the other side of the river caused the line to snap and simultaneously brought down half the building onto the enemy near the large building – including the heavy-weapons armature that had been charging up to hit them in their new residency.

"Nice." Shepard remarked cocking her head to the side as the heavy-arms spider robot exploded beneath the rubble of the building. She rolled over, still on the ground from her entrance, and turned to look at Lexington. "Was that intentional?"

Lex shook his head, through a smile reached his eyes in the visor and he shrugged like he was king of the planet.

He was dead before Shepard could smile back at him.

"SNIPER! TAKE COVER!" Sagara managed to yell as Lexington's head exploded. Shepard quickly leopard-crawled to cover before taking a quick peek towards the river. She noticed the bright red laser-sight of a monkey-like robot perched on top of the pump house on the opposite side of the river taking aim at where Sagara's head had just been. Rica took out her sniper-rifle again, took aim and fired in less than four seconds. It jumped just beyond her shot almost like a grasshopper and landed on some debris near the main body of troopers. "Son of a bitch – this thing is fast!" She was stricken with fury to kill the thing that had taken Lexington's.

She took cover and programmed her helmet display to indicate the possible trajectory for the next attack. She activated CALIX and took aim over cover. It jumped twice within a twenty-meter radius before it stayed still long enough for her to take aim at the monkey-grasshopper robot. She fired, taking it out with a precision headshot that she'd excelled at in the N program.

She uncloaked as the geth sniper exploded into a pile of rubble and more small troopers began taking up firing positions near the pump house. "Sniper's down! Scratch the building clearing! Chief! Sagara! Eight and four firing arcs* with the twelve on those river guardians – one of you get over where I am. No heroics – pots shots only! Scan for more snipers every time you shoot and move along these windows to a different spot every time you pop up." She looked at their surroundings and realized this must have been an Alliance military radio tower of shorts. It was in bad shape, but some of the equipment still seemed functional though none of the staff had survived. As her eyes scanned around them, her gaze came to rest over Lexington's body and she had to resist the pang of guilt and anger that resonated within her – another corpse for this place – and forced herself to think logically before ordering Kaiden to strip the dead corporal of any useful tech. "Share what's left of his load between Jenkins and Bono. Jenkins! Pick up Lex's machine gun and cover the doorways to our on our six – do not give away your silhouette to the troopers below as you do so. Alenko; when you're done, meet me at the console I stop at – this tower's Alliance so hopefully we can send a communiqué to the _Normandy_ from here." Keeping low, Shepard made it over to the first console and began using her omni-tool to find out if it worked. She'd only just found a working connection between the antenna and power source in the third console when her helmet display beeped that Alenko was on his way over.

"Anymore big ones on the field yet?" she asked over the command communication net, wrenching open the bottom of the console and pulling out a few wires.

"Not yet, ma'am. Though I expect that won't stay the same for very long." He held out his open hand towards her.

Confused for a moment, she looked down at his open palm, froze, and then hesitantly reached out for the identity-tags. She held them up for a moment.

She closed her eyes and counted to ten before responding. "If we get this mission over with, we can come back and take his body back for burial," she said, getting the tags into a ceramic pouch on her armour's midsection. "Right now, I need everyone focused on the task at hand."

Alenko seemed to look at her for a moment, she couldn't see his eyes through his helmet, but he nodded solemnly. "Aye, aye, ma'am. What –"

Her omni-tool beeped at her, cutting off Alenko from her helmet's comm connection and immediately connecting her to the open-feed she'd been trying to create.

"_Teams Alph- -vo, this – rmandy. Radio -eck, ov-._"

She instinctively pressed too fingers to her ear against the helmet. "_Normandy_! This is Bravo Team! You are broken and unreadable; say again, over!"

She activated both the team-feed and the open-comm feed she had established. "I've got bad comms with the ship – Alenko, give me a hand! The rest of you kill anything that isn't us!"

"That's a lot of 'anythings', Commander," quipped Bonkowski, whose machine gun had over heated. He switched to his assault rifle in cover, looked up and over and quickly dove sideways to avoid the missile that struck just behind where he had been.

"Alenko! Jenkins!" snapped Rica, still working on the connection despite the attack. "Get him out of there! We are leaving very soon! Sagara, pop up and tell me when you find out what threw that missile at us!"

She didn't wait for the private to say anything and tried to do her best with what she had to get the line with the _Normandy_ up and running by tagging along a emergency message for aid that kept repeating from the tower. "Normandy, this is bravo team leader, do you read, over?"

"_Normandy: Aye, Comm-der," _It sounded like Captain Anderson, but she couldn't be sure._ "We read – but you're pretty br – Sitrep, over_?"

"Bravo team leader: Sitrep – we are engaged by hostiles of at least platoon strength. Heavy weapons have been spotted. One friendly KIA. Enemy is unconfirmed at this time, but our best guess is geth. Enemy intent was a defensive line along the west river."

"_Normandy: - about Alpha?_"

Shepard shook her head. "Bravo: No idea now. Lost comms when he got to the spaceport. Interference is bad. Can you get a lock on my location?"

"_Normandy: Confirm: you – t Locati- grid: 57-6- 8-3-4. I say -ain: grid: 5-6- 803-4._"

Shepard shrugged. _The numbers sort of match, _she thought with a wince. She attempted to get the ship to read back her location grid reference again and referenced more of the numbers to what was said earlier. _Close enough_.

"Bravo team: confirmed. I am at grid: 57868 80354. Wait, over." She switched to her command net. "Bono, tell me you're still alive."

"Here, ma'am," came a groggy voice on the comm. "But the sir's a little pissed that I've spent all of his medi-gel."

She grinned; glad she didn't have two sets of dog-tags in her pocket now.

"Ma'am," that Kaiden, sounding like he was sighing only moments before in derision. "He'll live, but it won't be good for him with the medi-gel wears off."

"Noted. I need you two and Jenkins to set up a rappel line with the cable we have left and pop out the back of this building before those forces get across the river." She switched to the all channel. "Sagara, what hit us?"

"No fucking clue, ma'am," she sounded like she was cringing.

"Those are not my favorite words, Sagara," warned the commander, tempted to look over the edge herself.

"I want to look again, but they haven't really been firing since the missile exploded."

Shepard blinked. Had they really? She thought back and smiled. "I take it back. Good call, kiddo. Maybe they think we're done in – the comm-line I switched onto to piggybacked is part of a constant distress signal so they might not think we're alive or we would have called for help. Hopefully, they'll try to clear the building instead of waste heavy ammo on us – sounds like an efficient machine-like idea to me. Regardless, move to the back with the boys and get down the rappel line they're making."

She moved as "Commander?" That was Kaiden in a worried tone of voice. "Why are you hoping their clear the building? Shouldn't we _not_ want that?"

She prepared to switch back to the comms she had with the Normandy. "No, we do want it. Once we pop out the back, they won't chase us either because I'm going to blow up some of the other side of the river and then this building. Get that rappel down the building and don't wait for me. Head towards the dig site and I'll catch up." She switched channels before Alenko could argue about the casualties of those that _could_ still be alive near their position. The likely-hood that they anyone was alive around here was very small and Serrica wasn't about to let the geth get away with any of it – especially with the rest of her team on the line. She bent her head to read the data she'd collected and began speaking on the net she'd established with the ship. "Normandy: this is Bravo. Fire mission. Direction: 1834. Distance: 600 meters. Danger Close. 6 Cobra missiles PD. Adjust Fire, over."

*Eight and four firing arcs: using the clock ray method, have an arc of fire that goes from eight o'clock to four o'clock from your centre of arc (in this case, the troops at the river pump house). Arcs were made wider because you're moving laterally along a low wall and are basically watching to shoot.

_A.N._

_Title is from the poem "I have a Rendez-Vous with Death" by Alan Seeger. Fitting for Lex._

_Only the further development of the story will dictate whether or not I actually kill Jenkins. He's starting to grow on me, though that's a George R.R. Martin kind of 'I like this character' and we all know how well that goes most of the time so 'meh'._

_Hopefully my fight pacing isn't too bad. A lot of things happen in this chapter and I hope I got the flow right (and the radio procedure :S)._

_Yes, I am acutely aware that the fire mission at the end of this chapter is really wrong as far as calling in fire from a supported arms that is not artillery, but I'll fix it later when I pick more army brains about it._

_Hmmm… Write the next chapter where we meet Ash or read Kristen Britain's Blackveil from the Green Rider Series… decisions, decisions._


End file.
